Today we are announcing a bitcoin betting site:http://betsofbitco.in/ (http://betsofbitco.in/)You can bet on anything from presidential candidates to product releases, obviously with bitcoins. You will be able to earn bitcoins in two ways:1) Taking a site on a bet and win.2) Submit a statement for betting and earn commission.Here is how we are going to breakdown the losing bets:1) 45% percent will go to winners proportional to their bets2) 45% percent will go to winners proportional to their time weighted bets, to promote early betting3) 5% percent will go to the submitter of the statement4) 5% will go to the siteWe don't collect any transaction fees but there is a small statement submission fee. Currently minimum bet and submission fee is both only 0.1 BTC. Please, let us know what you think.

Thanks indicasteve! If you have a good idea for a short term statement, I can waive the fee once for you.

IDK... it would have to deal with current events and the speculation of a measurable immediate effect.

Like, just today google bought motorola mobile. Should be big..was in all the news.

My question would be: Do you think google stock price will be higher or lower than the current price by 12 noon tomorrow. But..thats lame. Who really gives a crap about google stock prices if you don't own any.

Although this makes me puke in my own mouth, I think that most of the popular short term statements would probably have to be based on popular 'reality TV' events. Example: "Will Snookie get drunk this weekend and hump a plant again on Jersey Shores?" ... I might even bet on that one!

You can't count on something like a 'court decision' because we all know that's just a farce and no decision is ever made...it's more of a 'plea' and 'deal' than a decision.

You could make statements on sports...but that's not unique enough to draw interest.

Feature request: Comments. I actually did need some clarification about one of the bets, it would be nice to be able to contact the submitter and share opinions with fellow betters.

Feature request: Independent arbiter.

Feature request 2: Check. Our site moderators are the independent arbiters. We decide on they results, not the submitters.

Feature request 1: Comments would need extra moderation so we will not add them for a while. Since we decide on the bets, you probably want to contact us. If you have a question you can email us using the feedback link on your account page.

All of our bets are working fine so far. Did you write "0.7 BTC" or just "0.7" into the box, use the latter.

Feature request 2: Check. Our site moderators are the independent arbiters. We decide on they results, not the submitters.

Well, what I had in mind was a user (submitter) appointed arbiter. You can probably do it indirectly now, by specifying the arbiter's info in the bet itself, but then the moderators would need to verify the identity of the arbiter. I've been waiting for a betting system that automates this for some time now (since before Bitcoin), so thought I should just point it out.

P.S. Excellent site by the way, I put bets on 7 statements already. :D

We couldn't reproduce your bug, but we think we know what is going on. It is due to some bad programming choices we made. We are working on it, estimated fix: sometime next week. Can you PM me your username. We would like to credit your account for your inconvenience.

The idea of paying 5% to the person who came up with the bet is fantastic. I also like that you aren't running your own different internal currency. For instance, I'm not sure what 100 mc = 1 BTC/NMC means on the moonco.in site, since bitcoins don't have the same value as namecoins, and the ratio of them isn't a meaningful store of value . . .

I really want to use your site, but as I understand the rules, there is a big problem (please correct me if I'm not understanding right): As I understand things, a 100 BTC bet is the same as a 0.01 BTC bet made at exactly the same time for the weighted bet payout, and a 1 BTC bet made on the day the bet is created is the same as a 1 BTC bet made 1 minute before the bet is finished for the non-weighted payout.

Therefore, people can game the system by placing a whole bunch of tiny bets on each side when the bet is created, then a giant bet on the obvious winner right before the bet closes. In this way, they get most of the weighted bet payout, and most of the unweighted payout, without providing predictive value.

If I am wrong, please correct my misunderstanding. If I am right, I suggest that you pay out the whole 90% weighted by "bet size multiplied by the number of minutes in advance the bet was submitted". Therefore a 1 BTC bet submitted 1000 minutes in advance would be equivalent to a 10 BTC bet submitted 100 minutes in advance.

Second suggestion: bets should not be accepted once the outcome is clear. For instance, if the U.S. government announces that they have been having coffee with E.T., any bets placed on that topic after the announcement is made should be voided.

Third, I too would like to hear some comforting words about how you are storing the bitcoins. For instance, are most of the coins stored offline?

Address those three major issues (or fix my brain), and I am all over this.

Other minor suggestions:

It would be sweet to be able to comment on the bets. One way to do this might be to have topics on THIS forum like "[BOB] Will the U.S. govt admit ET visit before 2013?" - post them in off-topic, and each thread will serve as an advertisement for your site, and your site could link to the threads from each bet.

Collect 2% of ALL bets for yourself rather than 5% of losing bets. This will discourage obscenely huge bets if someone thinks they have a way to game the system, and you will probably make more money since winning bets will typically be larger. Also it makes your fees appear smaller and it helps prevent you from being accused of bias since the current system gives you more money in fees if a particular side wins.

Rather than a submission fee, require that the submitter place a minimum bet on at least one side of their their new topic.

You need standings! I want to be able to see the top predictors by accuracy, earnings, and (most importantly) % increase in portfolio value, broken down by "last 7 days", "last 30 days", "all time", etc. I used to play PPX (the popular science predictions exchange), and the competition for top spots was very addicting!

Here are my replies:This is wrong:"a 100 BTC bet is the same as a 0.01 BTC bet made at exactly the same time for the weighted bet payout"Weighted amount = (minutes to deadline) * (bet mount)So this portion is already like you suggested, you can study the example distribution in our help page.

This is correct:"1 BTC bet made on the day the bet is created is the same as a 1 BTC bet made 1 minute before the bet is finished for the non-weighted payout."This is why it is generally not a good idea for the submitter to set a deadline very close to the event.

Early bets on both sides may or may not result in net profit, it is not guaranteed. If this becomes an issues we can change the percentages. %90 weighted might be too much, as it may still be valid in many cases to bet at the last minute.

We are able to terminate a bet early (i.e. before the original deadline) and we will so if the outcome becomes clear or any major event happens (as stated in the help page).

We are indeed storing a small amount of bitcoins on the server.

A forum or in-page commenting is planned but we need more moderator power to do that. No promises right now.

I hope this addresses your concerns. Let me know if you any other questions.

Here are my replies:This is wrong:"a 100 BTC bet is the same as a 0.01 BTC bet made at exactly the same time for the weighted bet payout"Weighted amount = (minutes to deadline) * (bet mount)So this portion is already like you suggested, you can study the example distribution in our help page.

This is correct:"1 BTC bet made on the day the bet is created is the same as a 1 BTC bet made 1 minute before the bet is finished for the non-weighted payout."This is why it is generally not a good idea for the submitter to set a deadline very close to the event.

Early bets on both sides may or may not result in net profit, it is not guaranteed. If this becomes an issues we can change the percentages. %90 weighted might be too much, as it may still be valid in many cases to bet at the last minute.

We are able to terminate a bet early (i.e. before the original deadline) and we will so if the outcome becomes clear or any major event happens (as stated in the help page).

We are indeed storing a small amount of bitcoins on the server.

A forum or in-page commenting is planned but we need more moderator power to do that. No promises right now.

I hope this addresses your concerns. Let me know if you any other questions.

Sweet . . .

Would you mind disclosing what % of coins are stored offline?

Also, I edited my earlier post a few times and added more minor suggestions :)

I think I will include a link to a post on the bitcoin forum for any bets I create, unless you object . . .

Another suggestion: I'd really like to see the bet history for any open bet (the size and time of any bets that were placed, and optionally who placed the bets if they don't request to be anonymous)

Another question: I don't see any list of prohibited bets. For instance, I am doubtful you would allow me to bet 10,000 BTC that a political figure will not be assassinated (might as well send an invitation to the secret service to raid your house). I wonder if I could bet that a particular stock will crash (potential you would get in trouble for insider trading).

It will be interesting to see if your site gets big enough to where people start doing arbitrage between similar bets on your site and intrade.

Another suggestion: For some easy marketing, do a quick search on this forum for "intrade" and "prediction market", and send PMs to a few people likely to be interested in your site (for instance, http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Abitcointalk.org+"intrade.com" (http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Abitcointalk.org+"intrade.com")). You would have found me this way, and I would have appreciated the notification!

Suggestion: Let the statement creator determine what % of the payout is weighted by time. At least some (if not most) bets make sense to be 100% weighted. A few do make sense to be more unweighted, for instance if the outcome of the bet is completely random like a lottery drawing.

* We are not using a fixed percentage, current value of in-server-balance is well below 50%. What is in the server can easily be replaced by our own funds. What percentage would make you feel safe?* We don't have enough moderators for commenting right now. Do you know a nice free forum service, we can build a community in? In the meantime you can post * Interesting suggestion for commission structure. We thought that people would not be willing to pay commission from winning bets, but we might be wrong. Suggest it in the feedback box (right top corner of every page) and people can vote on it.* Right now we require both a submission fee and a minimum bet. I think it is fair to ask for submission fee, because we spend time on every submission and it may not generate losing bets. Also we want to make sure that people will think of controversial statements that may attract 2BTC on both sides.* Standings or bet history is also something I can not promise for soon. We want to make things as anonymous as possible. But feedback voting box is there for a reason.* Use your best judgment for prohibited bets. Obviously we will not allow assassination statements, but we have no problem with betting on individual stock values. Our volume is not high enough to justify any insider trading yet.* Arbitrage is something that would only make the market more efficient.* As I said, for many things you can ask for community voting in our feedback box.

* We are not using a fixed percentage, current value of in-server-balance is well below 50%. What is in the server can easily be replaced by our own funds. What percentage would make you feel safe?* We don't have enough moderators for commenting right now. Do you know a nice free forum service, we can build a community in? In the meantime you can post * Interesting suggestion for commission structure. We thought that people would not be willing to pay commission from winning bets, but we might be wrong. Suggest it in the feedback box (right top corner of every page) and people can vote on it.* Right now we require both a submission fee and a minimum bet. I think it is fair to ask for submission fee, because we spend time on every submission and it may not generate losing bets. Also we want to make sure that people will think of controversial statements that may attract 2BTC on both sides.* Standings or bet history is also something I can not promise for soon. We want to make things as anonymous as possible. But feedback voting box is there for a reason.* Use your best judgment for prohibited bets. Obviously we will not allow assassination statements, but we have no problem with betting on individual stock values. Our volume is not high enough to justify any insider trading yet.* Arbitrage is something that would only make the market more efficient.* As I said, for many things you can ask for community voting in our feedback box.

Bring on more suggestions. We love it.

50% is fine for now, but hopefully you will keep as few coins on the server as possible as you get bigger.

* We are not using a fixed percentage, current value of in-server-balance is well below 50%. What is in the server can easily be replaced by our own funds. What percentage would make you feel safe?

What would make me feel safe would be if it's automated. In the MyBitcoin case, most of the funds were supposed to be offline, and I'm sure it was that way when that fact was stated, but they were probably too busy to do the maintenance, which is actually understandable.

My uninformed suggestion could be; for instance, balance that won't be needed for 5-10 days can be automatically transferred offline. Funds could be transferred manually back in if need be, which is a maintenance job that needs to be done every 5-10 days; but hey, accidentally falling behind a few payments is much better than being unable to pay at all...

- The weighting algorithm is going to be too cumbersome for the average user. Every bet is essentially some combination of weighting plus the total amount of bets against you, so it is hard to know what odds you are getting at any given time.

- The opportunity costs of long bets are enormous. Even if I was sure BTC would be around a year from now and this site would be, locking up a bunch of money in a bet that can't be traded is a liquidity trap. Also, by storing bets in BTC you are also speculating not only on your bet, but on the long term movement of the currency.

- The reason intrade and similar sites work well is because it is intuitive and easy to understand and you know exactly what odds you are getting at any point in time. i.e.; because of the 1-100 all or nothing nature of the bests you can buy into a long term contract and expect to sell it when it goes up, even if you have no intention of waiting until the resolution of the contract. Secondly, the 1-100 numbering matches how we think of the likelihood of events happening in our heads (a 50% chance it is going to rain tomorrow, etc)

- The design is great, the typos all over the place are not so much.

In short, I would love a liquid predictions market, especially one that allows the creation of predictions and gives a percentage of profit to the creators of successful predictions (though this does encourage a little bit of predictions gaming where one is essentially getting better odds on ones own predictions than anyone else is) but I don't think this is it. The betting system is too opaque and the risks and opportunity costs of long term contracts, held in bit coins, that can't be traded, is too much.

Even if they could be traded, it would essentially be as complicated as trading things like long term derivatives in an options market rather than as straightforward as betting on than buying contracts that say an event will happen at say .76 BTC/contract and knowing that means the market currently thinks there is a 76% chance of this event occurring

- The weighting algorithm is going to be too cumbersome for the average user. Every bet is essentially some combination of waiting plus the total amount of bets against you, so it is hard to know what odds you are getting at any given time.

- The opportunity costs of long bets are enormous. Even if I was sure BTC would be around a year from now and bets of bit coin would be, locking up a bunch of money in a bet that can't be traded is a liquidity trap. Also, by storing bets in BTC you are also speculating not only on your bet, but on the long term movement of the currency.

- The reason intrade and similar sites work well is because it is intuitive and easy to understand and you know exactly what odds you are getting at any point in time. i.e.; because of the 1-100 all or nothing nature of the bests you can buy into a long term contract and expect to sell it when it goes up, even if you have no intention of waiting until the resolution of the contract. Secondly, the 1-100 numbering matches how we think of the likelihood of events happening in our heads (a 50% chance it is going to rain tomorrow, etc)

Very good points. I wouldn't personally put together a site like this because of the possibility that intrade will start accepting bitcoin deposits and withdrawals, killing any reason for people to use a bitcoin-only site.

I also prefer to be able to get into a position when the odds are attractive, and get out once the odds have approached what I think is fair, but I can live with this for now . . .

Very good points. I wouldn't personally put together a site like this because of the possibility that intrade will start accepting bitcoin deposits and withdrawals, killing any reason for people to use a bitcoin-only site.

I wouldn't hold your breath. I have gone back and forth with various InTrade CS people and all I ever get is essentially "we're thinking about it"

1. Sent some BTC in2. Placed some bets3. Decided not to start my own bet statements and bet on them, since it isn't free (hint hint)4. Withdrew the remaining BTC rather than letting them sit on the site

I put a big bet against a government acknowledgement of extraterrestrials, which seems like a safe bet in terms of the bet statement itself, but could be considered risky considering the expiration at the end of 2012 and the "here today gone tomorrow" nature of bitcoin sites . . .

I want to personally assure the users that if we need to close the website for some unforeseeable reason, we will send back everyone whatever balance they have.

Also official statement from our previous service provider is that there is no security breach in our data center and our loss of service is due to some buggy virtualization software. Since then we changed our provider and increased our off-site backup frequency to every half hour.

I'd like to raise a question about this service: do we have any good reason to trust it?

Some quick facts:- owner identity unknown- it was registered with offshore 100% anonymous hosting (vindohosting.com)- it is hosted at LeaseWeb currently (same as MyBitcoin)

I hate to be paranoid, but somebody has to be.

These are all good questions. I trust it enough to bet on everything I have a vague idea about, but I suspect the service not being very active is somewhat related to trust. There are very long bets, which I think is a very good thing to have, but besides the reality of locking your money for a long time, it's currently impossible to judge if the system will be alive for that long. I hope we see improvements on that front, otherwise it will just be simple bets for simple amounts.

I'd like to raise a question about this service: do we have any good reason to trust it?

Some quick facts:- owner identity unknown- it was registered with offshore 100% anonymous hosting (vindohosting.com)- it is hosted at LeaseWeb currently (same as MyBitcoin)

I hate to be paranoid, but somebody has to be.

These are all true.We want to earn trust by being in business for years to come. I understand people being paranoid. We were actually frustrated when our competitor moonco.in has disappeared. Community needs responsible service providers more than anything.

These are all true.We want to earn trust by being in business for years to come. I understand people being paranoid. We were actually frustrated when our competitor moonco.in has disappeared. Community needs responsible service providers more than anything.

People trusted MyBitcoin for the same reason, being in business for long time... but it's false type of trust I believe. What prevents you from disappearing 5 years from now, when site is popular and there's big incentive/little risk to do so?

Yes, community needs responsible service providers. Hiding behind anonymity does not help at all!

Yes, community needs responsible service providers. Hiding behind anonymity does not help at all!

Or the service provider needs to work around it. Giving the control of all or most of the assets to a trusted network of arbiters could be one way of doing it. Every transaction above a certain amount will need signatures of a certain number of arbiters. These people need to be publicly known and trusted. They can do this for multiple projects and make money from it.

Or the service provider needs to work around it. Giving the control of all or most of the assets to a trusted network of arbiters could be one way of doing it. Every transaction above a certain amount will need signatures of a certain number of arbiters. These people need to be publicly known and trusted. They can do this for multiple projects and make money from it.

Is there such an arbiter protocol suggested somewhere? Does anybody know if this is possible with Open Transactions?

Or the service provider needs to work around it. Giving the control of all or most of the assets to a trusted network of arbiters could be one way of doing it. Every transaction above a certain amount will need signatures of a certain number of arbiters. These people need to be publicly known and trusted. They can do this for multiple projects and make money from it.

Is there such an arbiter protocol suggested somewhere? Does anybody know if this is possible with Open Transactions?

Not to my knowledge. I also would like to know if the scripting system of Bitcoin is capable of supporting something that would be of help in this manner? AFAIK you can theoretically require n signatures out of m to access an amount, but once you have the required criteria you access the whole amount. It can still be useful though...

Competition coming? Crowdpark the creator of the social gambling and prediction-market Bet Tycoon on Facebook just got $6M of new funding and its co-founder "would love to" add bitcoin as a virtual currency used in their betting.

Whether or not there is a sincere interest in this or if this was just a response was teased out by the reporter is something not apparent from the article.

Competition coming? Crowdpark the creator of the social gambling and prediction-market Bet Tycoon on Facebook just got $6M of new funding and its co-founder "would love to" add bitcoin as a virtual currency used in their betting.

Whether or not there is a sincere interest in this or if this was just a response was teased out by the reporter is something not apparent from the article.

Site down. http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/http://betsofbitco.in

Coinjedi?

Yes, we are working on it. It is possibly due to a problem with the service provider. We created a support ticket and they are working on it. Once again, we have regular off-site backups for the worst case. We hope to be back soon.

What happens if the statement can not be decided?If the moderators eventually decide that statement turned out to be undecidable (e.g. sports event is canceled), they will call it a draw and everyone will get their bets back without any commissions.

The way most statements are phrased, I don't think any of them would be "undecidable". For example:

Quote from: example

The Blue Team will win the 2012 Grand Sports Trophy.

If every single team gets killed by a meteor strike (or the event gets cancelled for some other reason), the Blue Team did not, in fact, win the 2012 Grand Trophy. As such, the people who placed a bet on "disagree" deserve the money.How will you handle situations like that?

In the case of cancelled events due to unforeseen circumstances (e.g. meteor strikes) we tend to call it a draw as the statement implicitly assumes the event will take place. When it is called a draw, every bettor gets their coins back without any commissions.

In the case of cancelled events due to unforeseen circumstances (e.g. meteor strikes) we tend to call it a draw as the statement implicitly assumes the event will take place. When it is called a draw, every bettor gets their coins back without any commissions.

Fair enough I guess. You should probably be extremely specific in your "help" section though (more so than the example you already provide), since there could be a lot of money involved and "undecidable" sort of implies that the statement could not possibly be decided by any means.

You ruled a while ago that "x will be the republican nominee" was a draw because the person dropped out, which seems wrong to me. Probably many candidates will drop out before the issue is finally decided.

You ruled a while ago that "x will be the republican nominee" was a draw because the person dropped out, which seems wrong to me. Probably many candidates will drop out before the issue is finally decided.

I can only see two closed republican nominee bets, both are decided as "False" not "Draw":http://betsofbitco.in/closed_search?q=republican (http://betsofbitco.in/closed_search?q=republican)Let me know if you can find it out, I'll look into it.

The Miami Heat will win the 2012 NBA Finals (http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=223)

Welcome on board and thank you for the compliments! Don't forget that the statements are invisible to others until they are approved, which I did just now. Also let us know by email if Miami is eliminated from the playoffs. We do our best to follow up all the statements but submitters help would be appreciated for the best experience of the bettors.

The Miami Heat will win the 2012 NBA Finals (http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=223)

Welcome on board and thank you for the compliments! Don't forget that the statements are invisible to others until they are approved, which I did just now. Also let us know by email if Miami is eliminated from the playoffs. We do our best to follow up all the statements but submitters help would be appreciated for the best experience of the bettors.

Thanks! I've placed several bets now and am looking foward to playing around with the site.

I do have a request. The "Bet deadline" and "Event date" didn't allow for a long enough spread time to keep people from gaming the system should the Heat be eliminated early. Is this something you could adjust for me? In a perfect world, the bet deadline and event dates would be as shown below:

Bet deadline: April 28, 2012 (Start of the 2012 NBA Playoffs)Event date: June 26, 2012 (Last possible date for the 2012 NBA Finals if the series goes 7 games)

I do have a request. The "Bet deadline" and "Event date" didn't allow for a long enough spread time to keep people from gaming the system should the Heat be eliminated early. Is this something you could adjust for me? In a perfect world, the bet deadline and event dates would be as shown below:

Bet deadline: April 28, 2012 (Start of the 2012 NBA Playoffs)Event date: June 26, 2012 (Last possible date for the 2012 NBA Finals if the series goes 7 games)

There is no perfect single deadline for many statements like this one. Here is our solution: We advise submitters to use a late deadline and let us know if the statement can be can be concluded early. In your case, if Heat can't make it to the playoffs let us know, we will early terminate the bets and cancel the ones that try to "game" the system. Does it sound good?

Hi Coinjedi, great web site. I thought that BTCSportsBet was great for sports, but this looks to be a lot of fun at a whole different level

Just a little feedback on web functionality: would be nice to always see current BTC balance when one is logged in, perhaps on the Black bar header, next to the Account user name. I noticed BTCSportsBet has that available.

Not sure if you're looking for more features to implement... But some stats would be nice. "You win 90% (9/10) of your bets" or something like that. Perhaps even a stats page to show the best gamblers. It would also be cool if each bet had it's own comments section so people could discuss the bet. A calendar showing when your personal bets will take place would also be a sweet addition. Keep up the great work!

Not sure if you're looking for more features to implement... But some stats would be nice. "You win 90% (9/10) of your bets" or something like that. Perhaps even a stats page to show the best gamblers. It would also be cool if each bet had it's own comments section so people could discuss the bet. A calendar showing when your personal bets will take place would also be a sweet addition. Keep up the great work!

Unfortunately, statement reviews, statement decisions, user interaction, server maintenance and advertisement currently takes all the time we can spend on this project. But keep posting suggestions, when we go back to coding we'll start from the best ideas.

Is there any way to get a full transaction history on the site? I see the "Your Transactions" heading, but it only shows the last ten. How do we see the rest?

Official bitcoin daemon API is rather limited. It doesn't give you the full history but only the given number of last transactions. For your external transactions your bitcoin client, for internal transactions your bet history tabs are more complete. If you need more info I can manually generate and send it to you. I agree that transaction history is the most unsatisfactory part of the site at the moment.

This statement will be true if there is an official statement from the OPERA collaboration stating that there was an error in the previous analysis or the results are refuted by more data before the end of April.

- http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=139

That's almost a slam dunk then for those betting "Agree" but there are still three weeks left where additional wagers can be placed, causing that ratio to widen even as the latecomers wager on Agree as well

So even though the return isn't that great, it might seem like this would be a sure thing that the result will be True. There is just a hint of suspense yet though. There was no "official statement" about there being an error yet, as far as I saw. It is widely known that the data can "refute the results" but as-of-yet new data confirming the error hasn't been published. The instructions don't specify that the data has to be made official though so this has probably already been decided.

I just wanted to ask then if any alteration to the bet occurs when the decision is already known before the end date. No affect? I suppose that's a risk those betting early should take into account.

[Update: Full disclosure - after I posted this I wagered on "Agree" (True) ]

This statement will be true if there is an official statement from the OPERA collaboration stating that there was an error in the previous analysis or the results are refuted by more data before the end of April.

- http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=139

That's almost a slam dunk then for those betting "True" but there are still three weeks left where additional wagers can be placed, causing that ratio to widen even as the latecomers wager on True as well

So even though the return isn't that great, it might seem like this would be a sure thing that the result will be True. There is just a hint of suspense yet though. There was no "official statement" about there being an error yet, as far as I saw. It is widely known that the data can "refute the results" but as-of-yet new data confirming the error hasn't been published. The instructions don't specify that the data has to be made official though so this has probably already been decided.

I just wanted to ask then if any alteration to the bet occurs when the decision is already known before the end date. No affect? I suppose that's a risk those betting early should take into account.

I don't have any holding in this bet, but in my opinion it is extremely ambiguous and should be cancelled. In very many cases, "the results are refuted by more data before the end of April" is hard to interpret. The fact that the bet hasn't been closed already suggests that the site's interpretation is that there is still no additional data available yet. However, it is not clear if that is true.

Here is what we said in the statement description (http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=139):

Quote

This statement will be true if there is an official statement from the OPERA collaboration stating that there was an error in the previous analysis or the results are refuted by more data before the end of April.

Here is the only official statement (http://press.web.cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2011/PR19.11E.html) from the OPERA collaboration:

Quote

The OPERA collaboration has informed its funding agencies and host laboratories that it has identified two possible effects that could have an influence on its neutrino timing measurement. These both require further tests with a short pulsed beam. If confirmed, one would increase the size of the measured effect, the other would diminish it.

Emphasis is mine. We haven't closed the bets because the collaboration haven't confirmed these possible errors and there is large chance that the conclusion will not be reached until the end of April. To be more clear, if no more development happens until the end of April, the statement will be ruled false. If there is a positive announcement we will close the bets and rule the statement true.

Here is what we said in the statement description (http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=139):

Quote

This statement will be true if there is an official statement from the OPERA collaboration stating that there was an error in the previous analysis or the results are refuted by more data before the end of April.

Here is the only official statement (http://press.web.cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2011/PR19.11E.html) from the OPERA collaboration:

Quote

The OPERA collaboration has informed its funding agencies and host laboratories that it has identified two possible effects that could have an influence on its neutrino timing measurement. These both require further tests with a short pulsed beam. If confirmed, one would increase the size of the measured effect, the other would diminish it.

Emphasis is mine. We haven't closed the bets because the collaboration haven't confirmed these possible errors and there is large chance that the conclusion will not be reached until the end of April. To be more clear, if no more development happens until the end of April, the statement will be ruled false. If there is a positive announcement we will close the bets and rule the statement true.

That announcement has to come from OPERA only or could it come from someone else? [To bad I don't have funds left to bet on this then, the yes side now looks way overvalued]

That announcement has to come from OPERA only or could it come from someone else? [To bad I don't have funds left to bet on this then, the yes side now looks way overvalued]

Statement description says "if there is an official statement from the OPERA collaboration", so yes it has to come from OPERA.

so for example, suppose some other group repeated the experiment and refutes the OPERA result, but OPERA does not release any statement. Based on what you are saying, the statement would be false in this case. This isn't at all clear from the statement text. It could be read either way. You should cancel the bet in my opinion.

so for example, suppose some other group repeated the experiment and refutes the OPERA result, but OPERA does not release any statement. Based on what you are saying, the statement would be false in this case. This isn't at all clear from the statement text. It could be read either way. You should cancel the bet in my opinion.

ICARUS collaboration recently measured neutrino speeds in their own experiment and found no excess speed. There are also astrophysical observations of neutrino speeds from many years ago which are cited in the original OPERA paper. These do not mean that an "error is discovered" in the OPERA experiment. Also the description we posted is quite clear that we require an official statement from the collaboration.

so for example, suppose some other group repeated the experiment and refutes the OPERA result, but OPERA does not release any statement. Based on what you are saying, the statement would be false in this case. This isn't at all clear from the statement text. It could be read either way. You should cancel the bet in my opinion.

ICARUS collaboration recently measured neutrino speeds in their own experiment and found no excess speed. There are also astrophysical observations of neutrino speeds from many years ago which are cited in the original OPERA paper. These do not mean that an "error is discovered" in the OPERA experiment. Also the description we posted is quite clear that we require an official statement from the collaboration.

It can't be clear or there wouldn't be this much misunderstanding of it. I'm not even betting on it. You can check.

Also the description we posted is quite clear that we require an official statement from the collaboration.

Still is ambiguous to me. Well, not only ambiguous but clear enough to me (before you clarified what the intention was) that I felt comfortable placing a bet on something that seemed to nearly be a "sure thing".

Had that initially been written so that there was no doubt the intention, it would have included the word "either".

Such as:"This statement will be true if there is an official statement from the OPERA collaboration stating that either there was an error in the previous analysis or that the results are refuted by more data before the end of April.

This will be a good test here for seeing how this gets resolved. Observing the process I wonder if improvements to policy for the service should be considered.

Specifically, the policy on when the service will weigh in on something like this. Bets Of Bitcoin just provided clarification about how to interpret the details regarding an event after bets had already been taken but before the betting has ended. In my opinion (as a layman) I don't think there should have been any comment other than to direct the user to existing published policy regarding what the judging process will be once the event occurs.

Also this is what happened when I placed a big bet on http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=209 as soon as I read the news that he stepped back:

1st bet:Deadline still months away

2nd bet (after transferring more money):Deadline changed to April 10th, 5 hours to go (probably my rather large 1st bet made them check the news? ;) )

3rd bet (only 10 Bitcents that I wanted to use on a statement of my own):Bet still open

Today:All 3 bets cancelled and refunded (1st bet was refunded twice, I'm not sure if out of error or as a kind of reconsiliation), bet didn't close on April 10th but on April 9th according to the website now.

I don't know if anyone else was affested too, but something like a better overview who dit bet when how much might be useful for transparency.

If you don't want to do this, please at least have an API, then I could pull the data myself and display it on my own. I already have quite an extensive set of spreadsheets that calculates payout amounts if I place a bet this high on that statement and this data could be used to refine it.

Here is what happened. When I saw the news I intended to close the bet by setting the deadline to the previous day but put the wrong date (4/10). Couple hours later noticed that it is still available, so I fixed the deadline (4/9) and system automatically cancelled and refunded the bets you did in the mean time.

Moral of the story: If you see it on the news it is too late to bet. Sooner or later your bets will be cancelled. You wouldn't want others to jump on your bets after the news, right?

One hurdle to most anyone who newly registered an account is that funds need to exist in the account before a new bet entry can be submitted.

However, the submission needs reviewed by an admin before it is accepted. Why can't submissions then be accepted regardless of balance? Then the verification that the account has funds occurrs at the same time that the review is performed. Or perhaps at the time of submission, in addition to looking at the account balance consider any 0/unconfirmed payments as well -- those would in nearly all instances be confirmed by the time that the entry's review occurs at a later time. And if they didn't confirm, then the entry doesn't get approved.

To improve participation levels ... try to remove the reasons people don't participate.

One of the factors considered when the site reviews newly submitted bets is whether or not there is an incentive to bet on both sides. I've only seen one report of a bet being rejected for that reason though ("The world will end in 2012" which was rejected for it offered no economic incentive for anyone to bet "Agree".)

So, I'm guessing there has never yet been a bet that made it to expiration with bets sitting on only one side.

But as I recently learned, a bet could be closed if the outcome is known early.

So it is possible that a bet would close with bets on only one side. The "Hugo Chavez will be re-elected" bet is one such bet: - http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=302

If he were to die today, there are no "disagree" bets at the present time.

Here is what happened. When I saw the news I intended to close the bet by setting the deadline to the previous day but put the wrong date (4/10). Couple hours later noticed that it is still available, so I fixed the deadline (4/9) and system automatically cancelled and refunded the bets you did in the mean time.

Moral of the story: If you see it on the news it is too late to bet. Sooner or later your bets will be cancelled. You wouldn't want others to jump on your bets after the news, right?

PS: We are honored that you put us in your signature.

What if something that makes it incredibly unlikely, but not 0%? The loss to the early bettors is almost the same, but you surely cannot intervene right?

What if Santorum changes his mind or runs under the new party "Christians" after America undergoes a sweeping religious revival?

If Obama falls down a 30 foot well and is unconscious but not yet confirmed dead do you honor bets made after that saying he will not be re-elected? Or gets hit by a truck and is in a coma, when do you pull the plug (on the wagers). What if he picks his nose and flicks it on a reporter?

I'm having a little fun, but I'm also curious and it does seem like an important thing to know.

Also please spell out more rules on submitting bets and collect already rejected bets.

I got a bet rejected because "We decided not to have self-referential bets" - (http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=335). There is no mention on the page anywhere that this is against any rule. Actually it's one of the most easy ways to decide if a bet has won or not and I had even more ideas that I can now probably no longer submit ("This statement will have an even amount of Bitcoins as bets" and similar).

Currently lots of bets are long in the future - if I want to bet, I want to see some result in a few hours or days. Not months.

Are you as the operators allowed to put up statements too?

Edit:Also, http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=337 is far too easy to manipulate if the criteria is "1 share or more sold at 1.1 BTC from the IPO" - having "all shares must be sold at 1.1 BTC or above" would make more sense to me... it is not 100% clear to me which of the 2 is meant - if it is the first, I'd like you to reject the statement.

What if something that makes it incredibly unlikely, but not 0%? The loss to the early bettors is almost the same, but you surely cannot intervene right?

What if Santorum changes his mind or runs under the new party "Christians" after America undergoes a sweeping religious revival?

If Obama falls down a 30 foot well and is unconscious but not yet confirmed dead do you honor bets made after that saying he will not be re-elected? Or gets hit by a truck and is in a coma, when do you pull the plug (on the wagers). What if he picks his nose and flicks it on a reporter?

I'm having a little fun, but I'm also curious and it does seem like an important thing to know.

I am glad that people put thought on the details of the procedure. We basically have two choices. We can either wait until the pre-set event date to be 100% sure, or we can use our best judgment and pay the winners. One day in the future we might be wrong but overall I think this way is more fun and profitable for everyone.

Also please spell out more rules on submitting bets and collect already rejected bets.

I got a bet rejected because "We decided not to have self-referential bets" - (http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=335). There is no mention on the page anywhere that this is against any rule. Actually it's one of the most easy ways to decide if a bet has won or not and I had even more ideas that I can now probably no longer submit ("This statement will have an even amount of Bitcoins as bets" and similar).

Currently lots of bets are long in the future - if I want to bet, I want to see some result in a few hours or days. Not months.

Are you as the operators allowed to put up statements too?

Edit:Also, http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=337 is far too easy to manipulate if the criteria is "1 share or more sold at 1.1 BTC from the IPO" - having "all shares must be sold at 1.1 BTC or above" would make more sense to me... it is not 100% clear to me which of the 2 is meant - if it is the first, I'd like you to reject the statement.

I agree that it is very easy to decide. But if we allow such bets many people will start submitting those kind of bets ("This statement will get more bets than this other one" etc). We would like to keep the site on real world events. There are many events (sports games etc) in a few days. You may want to try those.

We did created many of the early statements, but we do it very rarely these days. So yes we are allowed to put statements.

Also, http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=337 is far too easy to manipulate if the criteria is "1 share or more sold at 1.1 BTC from the IPO" - having "all shares must be sold at 1.1 BTC or above" would make more sense to me... it is not 100% clear to me which of the 2 is meant - if it is the first, I'd like you to reject the statement.

As a clarification I put the "Price is defined as the lowest price paid for the bonds." note on the page. So it is the second definition.

As a clarification I put the "Price is defined as the lowest price paid for the bonds." note on the page. So it is the second definition.

But you did that after there already had been wagers placed, right?

I guess part of the challenge to this is in predicting the outcome of the event, and then there's the additional challenge in predicting what material statements coinjedi will provide after the betting has already commenced.

p.s., Would be great to see the site put up a total of all wagers (agree + disagree) that are open at the present time. (not exact, but in the range of "More than X00 BTCs in NN open bets".

I guess part of the challenge to this is in predicting the outcome of the event, and then there's the additional challenge in predicting what material statements coinjedi will provide after the betting has already commenced.

p.s., Would be great to see the site put up a total of all wagers (agree + disagree) that are open at the present time. (not exact, but in the range of "More than X00 BTCs in NN open bets".

People asked for clarification here at the forum, I told them how I interpret the claim and put the same statements for others to see on the site. What would be the appropriate thing to do in your opinion?

PS: If you are curious total open bets is over 850 BTC, almost 1/10000 of all bitcoins in existence.

People asked for clarification here at the forum, I told them how I interpret the claim and put the same statements for others to see on the site. What would be the appropriate thing to do in your opinion?

I'm not sure. The problem I see is that when there is an ambiguity in a bet, those betting earlier are disadvantaged then when at a later time that ambiguity gets cleared up.

In this specific instance, the bet was fairly clear the way I read it. If a trade occurred at 1.10 BTC or higher, the statement would be true.

The way these "share auctions" work there isn't a single IPO price. The range of prices will be from the highest bid on down to the price paid for last share that is sold: - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=76594.msg850319#msg850319

And yes, since even a single share can be bid on with any price, the range used in determining the outcome for this bet can be easily manipulated.

So the bet itself was flawed. It probably should have been cancelled, the bets returned, and possibly a new bet created without the flaw corrected. Or to let it continue as-is, without comment or correction and deal with the manipulation issue if one exists at the time the site moderators decide the outcome.

Of course prior to the change the grand total of 1.4 BTC had been bet so if anyone has a real problem with the change, it isn't a big financial deal at stake.

But let's say this is like the real world and there are significant amounts of money riding on this. If that IPO range ends up being 1.09 BTC to 1.15 with the majority of shares trading at or over 1.10 then your change just made the outcome of the bet to be False. Any rational person functioning as a site moderator would have determined that the IPO price of 1.10 was definitely reached. Those who had already placed bets on Agree prior to your change get cheated in this instance, essentially.

I trust the site moderators to be rational at the end of the bet had this conflict occurred. Whatever decision they come up with would be the best decision based on the information at the time it is made. That's what I am counting on when I place a bet.

So my point was simply, if a bet is bad enough that it needs clarifying, then it is bad enough to be cancelled. I don't think this bet reached that threshold of needing to be canceled and thus should have been left as-is, ... in my opinion.

For what it's worth... I worded the bet "Pirate Pass Through (PPT.A) Bonds will reach an IPO price of 1.10 BTC."

The WILL REACH meant that the IPO would see a price at that level or higher at some point during the trading. It's pretty clear. Some people brought up that it could be manipulated, so jedi changed the bet to what he felt was right. I don't want it cancelled, so I went with it. I do see a problem with a site owner forcing a bet to be interpreted a certain way, but it's his site, so it is what it is. I did think it was odd that I am not allowed to submit a bet on my own terms, but again, it is what it is and I don't want the bet cancelled, so I'll play by jedi's rules.

I am so sorry that you felt being enforced. I emailed you before publishing my interpretation and you've said you are OK either way. If there is so much concern among both statement submitter and the bettors, it is a trivial matter to cancel the statement and open new one without these concerns in the way you want. I am here to help.

So what happened was the bet was approved without realizing that it violates one of the criteria that is used in evaluating each new bet. That criteria is that there must be an incentive to bet both sides. This criteria was used to dismiss the "World will end in 2012" bet because there was no incentive to bet "Agree": - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=64471.msg756912#msg756912 (can't stop chuckling about that one)

So in this instance, if the bet can be manipulated easily to guarantee that the outcome for the statement is true (i.e., "Agree" wins) then there is no incentive to bet "Disagree". And thus the only ones that would do so would be those that don't understand how the manipulation is possible. To publish that bet would be predatory and I'm happy to see that BetsOfBitco.in did not allow it, in its original form.

The only question was ... in the future, will the details of bets continue to be changed after betting has commenced or will they be cancelled and re-posted after correcting for the flaw?

The only question was ... in the future, will the details of bets continue to be changed after betting has commenced or will they be cancelled and re-posted after correcting for the flaw?

I did not and will not intentionally change the bet descriptions. In this particular case defining the price of something as the lowest you should pay to get seemed natural to me.I am sure there will be conflicts like this in the future. If we can not seem to reach a mutual viewpoint, canceling (and possibly re-posting) would be the solution, which I just did for this case.

Fortunately, so far this bet had a relatively small amount wagered. So this is the best time to experiment and see what works and what doesn't. You're doing a fantastic job, and I really enjoy both the topic (a bitcoin-enabled predictions market) and the content itself (the bets I can place, and seeing the progress of bet statements that I've submitted myself)

In fact, it is progressing so well, I'm now concerned about something else -- hacked accounts. Will there be an option for two-factor authentication (as an option only, of course)? I see that google two-factor is what GLBSE added recently. - http://lwn.net/Articles/470764

You're doing a fantastic job, and I really enjoy both the topic (a bitcoin-enabled predictions market) and the content itself (the bets I can place, and seeing the progress of bet statements that I've submitted myself)

In fact, it is progressing so well, I'm now concerned about something else -- hacked accounts. Will there be an option for two-factor authentication (as an option only, of course)? I see that google two-factor is what GLBSE added recently. - http://lwn.net/Articles/470764

I am glad to hear that you are having fun.

Two-factor authentication is something I would like to do, but I am reluctant to get Google involved with more than the analytics.

Heh. Ok, I must have been thinking "more than 24 hours" and typed "never". Either way, isn't that too loose? This is a wallet where I have money, right?

I really like to be able to stay logged in at various sites, so I feel like that is a good default behaviour. Wallet operations (withdrawals and address changes) require your password anyway. If you are at an untrusted computer you can always logout manually. Also there can be extensions for your browser of your choice that manages site authentications according to your taste (For example HTTP Logout for Firefox).

How much difficulty would it be to make deadlines at a certain time instead of midnight?

If I put up a statement like "A player who's username starts with A-M will win the Sunday 60BTC Guarantee at Seals" 90% of the action would happen in the hours leading up to the start time.

I can do it manually for you. Email me after the submission.Page will still show midnight but the countdown and other calculations will work fine. We can add a clarification in the item description.

BTW is that statement publicly verifiable?

Games can be watched by anyone, but results are not easily available afterwards right now. I can and will fix that though, then anyone can make any statement about our tourney results and you'll know where you can look for the results.

I strongly disagree with your decision regarding the FTL experiment. Theofficials admitted problems, and without retesting no conclusive answercan be given whether neutrinos can be FTL or not, making the*experiment* void and erranous.

> An error will be discovered in the faster-than-light-neutrinos experiment by the end of April 2012

While it is true the experiment does not give a conclusive answer to thespeed of neutrinos either way, the bet does not require disproving thethesis, merely rejecting the experiment, which was done by methodologyerrors.

The officials put it into evasive language for their investors, but toeveryone else the following should be clear:

> ... two POSSIBLE effects that could have an influence on its neutrino timing measurement. These both require further tests with a short pulsed beam.

Hence the experiment of interest *failed* to prove neutrinos are FTL.There is no burden of proof to show neutrinos are not FTL, andregardless of any further confirmations and retests, the originalexperiment is to be considered erranous.

I strongly disagree with your decision regarding the FTL experiment. Theofficials admitted problems, and without retesting no conclusive answercan be given whether neutrinos can be FTL or not, making the*experiment* void and erranous.

> An error will be discovered in the faster-than-light-neutrinos experiment by the end of April 2012

While it is true the experiment does not give a conclusive answer to thespeed of neutrinos either way, the bet does not require disproving thethesis, merely rejecting the experiment, which was done by methodologyerrors.

The officials put it into evasive language for their investors, but toeveryone else the following should be clear:

> ... two POSSIBLE effects that could have an influence on its neutrino timing measurement. These both require further tests with a short pulsed beam.

Hence the experiment of interest *failed* to prove neutrinos are FTL.There is no burden of proof to show neutrinos are not FTL, andregardless of any further confirmations and retests, the originalexperiment is to be considered erranous.

-coinft

Statement description clearly states that OPERA has to confirm the error sources. "The officials put it into evasive language for their investors, but toeveryone else the following should be clear" is very subjective. You cannot expect us to judge on a subjective interpretation of the statement under the subjective assumption that they are evading the investors. Officially the experiment is NOT declared to be "failed" and that is what matters for the bet.

"Chrome will overtake Internet Explorer in May 2012 on StatCounter" - http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=366

I remember creating a bet something like this while ago but don't remember seeing it launch.

I've PMed you your complete transaction history. Let me know if there is anything fishy.Probably there was an error and your submission never registered.

I see what happened. The bet statement I had ultimately submitted was for iOS marketshare and it did appear: - http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=358And mine isn't even the using same market share reporting service, so wow -- sorry, for the false alarm.

I strongly disagree with your decision regarding the FTL experiment...

I've started a new bet because I don't think that the speed or light is a constant maximum speed in the universe. The bet is:

Quote

There will be conclusive proof that some particles can travel faster than light before 2014

There will be conclusive proof that some particles can travel faster than light before 1 Jan 2014. The particles don't have to necessarily be neutrinos. The experiment must be peer reviewed and the results accepted by several reputed physicists.

Maybe some of the Einstein believers here want to help me define the bet better.We disagree, but let's find hat are the fairer terms for both sides. Maybe I'm alone in my side now and the rest of the people that agreed with me in the last bet only though that "May it's too early for the slowness of neutrinos to be confirmed". What would you change from the bet description?

There will be conclusive proof that some particles can travel faster than light before 2014

There will be conclusive proof that some particles can travel faster than light before 1 Jan 2014. The particles don't have to necessarily be neutrinos. The experiment must be peer reviewed and the results accepted by several reputed physicists.

As a conclusive proof I would require multiple experiments with totally different methods with the same conclusion. Reputed physicists will be several Nobel laureate class physicists explicitly defending the case. I think this practically impossible, especially when I am the judge. Note that first dark matter observations were done almost a century ago. Yet today we still can not say that the existence of dark matter particles are conclusively proven, because we have no direct observation of them and there are reasonable alternative gravity theories that might explain some observations.

Would you rather bet on "Another large scale experimental collaboration will report faster-than-light particle speeds"? That might be a more reasonable bet.

VALVe will release Half-Life 2 Episode 3 by the end of 2013http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=369

I think that it can be a good idea to open many new statements about pc gaming. ( and spam them around )This because it's easy to open flames/discussions about these topics, so it will give a lot of advertising about Bitcoin.More over, every pc-player has for sure a good GPU ;)

http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=348 was already fulfilled yesterday or so (you'll need to check the timestamp).

Announcement of dividends:https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=63257.msg880893#msg880893

Could we have a "report" button somewhere maybe?

I anyways have some (imho quite cool) ideas that would make the page even better, but you seem to ignore the requests on http://betsofbitcoin.uservoice.com so far anyways. Are you still working on the page or is development currently at a halt?

http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=348 was already fulfilled yesterday or so (you'll need to check the timestamp).

Announcement of dividends:https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=63257.msg880893#msg880893

Could we have a "report" button somewhere maybe?

Thanks. Late bets are cancelled and winners are paid.

Quote

I anyways have some (imho quite cool) ideas that would make the page even better, but you seem to ignore the requests on http://betsofbitcoin.uservoice.com so far anyways. Are you still working on the page or is development currently at a halt?

Unfortunately all the time I can spend on this project is now consumed by judging and user interactions. I hope I'll get back to coding some time soon, but no promises. In the mean time you can leave your suggestions here.

I withdrew some "bitdust" (sub-bitcents) and now have a balance of "Available balance: -0.00050000 [Withdraw]". Kinda weird... It looks like it needed to pay some transaction fees but didn't deduct them from the amount sent or something.I still have quite an amount of coins in bets, so no worries, the balance will soon be positive again. I'd kindly suggest though to deduct the fees from the amount sent, not the remaining balance (as this was 0.0 in my case).

By the way, since from that error with reversing bids and still having a wrong ending date I got these 3 bitcoins too much, I decided to place some bets that are probably loosing me these coins anyways but might make betting more interesting for others (e.g. the gas price bet: betsofbitco.in/item?id=329) instead of withdrawing and never looking back. I hope this helps making it more interesting to bet and you'll earn it back as commission anyways gradually.

Proof:Official preliminary results:http://landtagswahl-sh.de/extern_pdf/LTW_2012_Stichprobenergebnis_Zweitstimmen_19_38_Uhr.pdf (the statement in the end says that there's an error margin of 0.5% up or down)

Taken from http://www.landtagswahl-sh.de/ - the official page for the vote announcements.

I withdrew some "bitdust" (sub-bitcents) and now have a balance of "Available balance: -0.00050000 [Withdraw]". Kinda weird... It looks like it needed to pay some transaction fees but didn't deduct them from the amount sent or something.I still have quite an amount of coins in bets, so no worries, the balance will soon be positive again. I'd kindly suggest though to deduct the fees from the amount sent, not the remaining balance (as this was 0.0 in my case).

By the way, since from that error with reversing bids and still having a wrong ending date I got these 3 bitcoins too much, I decided to place some bets that are probably loosing me these coins anyways but might make betting more interesting for others (e.g. the gas price bet: betsofbitco.in/item?id=329) instead of withdrawing and never looking back. I hope this helps making it more interesting to bet and you'll earn it back as commission anyways gradually.

Your balance is negative by design. We decided that users should get what they asked for and any transaction fee official client suggests would be applied to the account. If they want to withdraw everything they'll pay it next time or it will be on us as a last courtesy.

Proof:Official preliminary results:http://landtagswahl-sh.de/extern_pdf/LTW_2012_Stichprobenergebnis_Zweitstimmen_19_38_Uhr.pdf (the statement in the end says that there's an error margin of 0.5% up or down)

Taken from http://www.landtagswahl-sh.de/ - the official page for the vote announcements.

I'm still amazed of my prediction skills - http://www.betsofbitco.in/item?id=333 (Bitcoin difficulty will be above 1.75 million at block #182000) was opened a month(!) ago and it's still not 100% clear where to put your money to earn a sure win.

It's likely to be true, but sipa's graphs currently point down a little bit...

There's a huge difference between a site not functioning due to technical problems and a site that has been compromised.

There's also a huge difference between a popular site with tons of paying customers versus a fledgling niche site like this whose revenues don't likely even cover the monthly hosting costs.

Was there something from this site that would give you any indication that it was compromised and thus make it justifiable to ask your question the way you did?

Or was it just like the 99.7% other small websites out there that are taken offline for scheduled or unscheduled maintenance, or where it wasn't able to respond as the result of some technical problem?

Our server was up and running for quite a while. Though sometimes some domain name servers do not resolve the ip properly. Unfortunately the problem is sporadic, unreproducible and only effects certain parts of the world but usually solves itself after a few hours. Do you still have issues?

Another "get some free money" bet should be decided now:http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=247http://www.buddytv.com/articles/survivor/survivor-one-world-finale-reca-45626.aspx

(there were only women in the finale anyways ;) )

Bets after the last male eliminated are cancelled and the winners are paid.

I'd like to challenge that, since there is a higher than 0% chance that there could be:

* No winner at all* More than 1 winner* A change in rules in the last show and declaring a male winner* ???

Also, due to the fact that early bets are anyways rated higher (much higher in some cases) it actually IS expected, that in the end of a bet people get more and more information that helps them decide, but they get fewer and fewer returns.

From the FAQ (emphasis mine):

Quote

What is the best betting strategy?Betting involves balancing two incentives. Waiting for the deadline may give you extra information about the upcoming event, but early bets earn a higher weight. So bet as soon as you are confident about the result, bet more for higher profits. Also you can always add more bets later on.

We think that we need to draw a line where the "fair" betting ends. This is unavoidably subjective, but we think that it is a better choice for an extra piece of mind of the earlier bettors. If we start to take into account of all the minuscule possibilities we can not exercise any early closure of bets. I hope you'll appreciate the decision.

Though I make mostly small wagers, I have many of them open currently. Instead of withdrawing winnings though, I find myself using those towards additional wagers. And because there are many new bets all the time, I am depositing more pretty regularly, so my "Balance in Bets" keeps growing: - http://betsofbitco.in/profile

Well, obviously nothing we'll say will convince you, but for the record we have no relation to moonco.in.We have started before they disappeared and .in domains are popular in bitcoin community for obvious reasons. I think it is started by betco.in.

Care to reveal your identity then? Or in any way prove that people can trust you with their money? I think saying 'the site is running already for several months with success' doesn't prove anything if you look at Moonco.in, MyBitcoin, Bicoin7 and others.

Care to reveal your identity then? Or in any way prove that people can trust you with their money? I think saying 'the site is running already for several months with success' doesn't prove anything if you look at Moonco.in, MyBitcoin, Bicoin7 and others.

"Chrome is the most popular browser in the world, says StatCounter" - http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/21/3033566/chrome-most-popular-browser-weekly-may-2012

Are prediction betting/prediction markets gambling anymore than the stock market investing? I think it is controversial. But in any case I've posted this on both forums and the gambling forum thread didn't take off, I think the gambling community decided that it is not in their interest.

I'll keep this bet open because the bet is on the total May ratings which is not available yet. The news is based on the third week of May data, not the whole month.

http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=333 is basically decided, as difficulty will be the same as now on block 182000 - False wins. One of the few bets so far that I've seen where the majority did not predict correctly.

Are there some stats on that by the way (how often there was an exact tie and how often the majority was right/wrong)?

Heh. Ok, I must have been thinking "more than 24 hours" and typed "never". Either way, isn't that too loose? This is a wallet where I have money, right?

I really like to be able to stay logged in at various sites, so I feel like that is a good default behaviour. Wallet operations (withdrawals and address changes) require your password anyway. If you are at an untrusted computer you can always logout manually. Also there can be extensions for your browser of your choice that manages site authentications according to your taste (For example HTTP Logout for Firefox).

I know that the withdrawal will require a password and that page is only SSL, but wouldn't an attacker that sniffs and sees my session id be able to then submit wagers using my balance? That would seem to be an odd attack, but it could be used to juice up the payout for the attacker by getting a higher level of wagers on the losing side.

I know that the withdrawal will require a password and that page is only SSL, but wouldn't an attacker that sniffs and sees my session id able to then able to submit wagers using my balance? That would seem to be an odd attack, but it could be used to juice up the payout for the attacker by getting a higher level of wagers on the losing side.

I've found that enforcing https for everything reduces the performance as things are not always cached properly. Requiring password for betting is also a nuisance. Either option would disrupt the user experience. Also as you have mentioned, unless the men-in-the-middle does not want to annoy you, he does not have an incentive for placing random bets. But if there is a demand from many users we can implement one the solutions.

I know that the withdrawal will require a password and that page is only SSL, but wouldn't an attacker that sniffs and sees my session id able to then able to submit wagers using my balance? That would seem to be an odd attack, but it could be used to juice up the payout for the attacker by getting a higher level of wagers on the losing side.

I've found that enforcing https for everything reduces the performance as things are not always cached properly. Requiring password for betting is also a nuisance. Either option would disrupt the user experience. Also as you have mentioned, unless the men-in-the-middle does not want to annoy you, he does not have an incentive for placing random bets. But if there is a demand from many users we can implement one the solutions.

I think a good compromise would be to have a user-selectable option to enable or disable always-on SSL connections. That way, even if we ignore the session hijacking idea, it would also prevent simple sniffing and seeing whether and how a person is betting.

Lets say I choose Obama to win and I bet 1.00 BTC how much would I get back if he wins?http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=5

If you are the last one to bet on this right now (weight 3856.60) you'd get 1.35157500 BTC (of which 1 BTC is your amount bet you're getting back). I wrote a spreadsheet for private use that polls this data for my bets, so it should be quite correct...

Of course this can change still quite a bit over time, depending on other bets on each side.

Lets say I choose Obama to win and I bet 1.00 BTC how much would I get back if he wins?http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=5

If you are the last one to bet on this right now (weight 3856.60) you'd get 1.35157500 BTC (of which 1 BTC is your amount bet you're getting back). I wrote a spreadsheet for private use that polls this data for my bets, so it should be quite correct...

Of course this can change still quite a bit over time, depending on other bets on each side.

Great site. My bet doesn't work as expected though. I want to create a bet with event date August 1st and betting deadline June 15th. Why doesn't it let me do that? I get some disappearing change-month-buttons on the deadline when I pick the event date so the earliest deadline I can define is July 4th. Huh? If there is any rule, why not allow me to pick any date but show an error explaining what's wrong for dates that are off limit?

Though I make mostly small wagers, I have many of them open currently. Instead of withdrawing winnings though, I find myself using those towards additional wagers. And because there are many new bets all the time, I am depositing more pretty regularly, so my "Balance in Bets" keeps growing: - http://betsofbitco.in/profile

I wonder if that is typical use.

Haha :) It is all over in all gambling sites I guess. Money you won is money you are "allowed" to loose without a bad conscience.

Great site. My bet doesn't work as expected though. I want to create a bet with event date August 1st and betting deadline June 15th. Why doesn't it let me do that? I get some disappearing change-month-buttons on the deadline when I pick the event date so the earliest deadline I can define is July 4th. Huh? If there is any rule, why not allow me to pick any date but show an error explaining what's wrong for dates that are off limit?

We strongly discourage very long wait times between bet deadline and event date. To enforce this interface does not allow anything more than 4 weeks. If you need more for a particular reason let us know in email or put a note in the item description and we will fix it for you before approval.

We strongly discourage very long wait times between bet deadline and event date.

What would be useful is the ability to transfer a bet to another BetsOfBitco.in account. (Well, useful as an alternate approach to having a market system like what Intrade offers). That way I might trade with another bettor at a discount in order to cash out early without having to wait for the bet to formally be closed and paid out. If BetsOfBitco.in needed to assess a transaction fee for that, that would seem fair too.

We strongly discourage very long wait times between bet deadline and event date.

What would be useful is the ability to transfer a bet to another BetsOfBitco.in account. (Well, useful as an alternate approach to having a market system like what Intrade offers). That way I might trade with another bettor at a discount in order to cash out early without having to wait for the bet to formally be closed and paid out. If BetsOfBitco.in needed to assess a transaction fee for that, that would seem fair too.

I am thinking of various market systems but unfortunately I am extremely short on time for coding. Hopefully in the future.

Great site. My bet doesn't work as expected though. I want to create a bet with event date August 1st and betting deadline June 15th. Why doesn't it let me do that? I get some disappearing change-month-buttons on the deadline when I pick the event date so the earliest deadline I can define is July 4th. Huh? If there is any rule, why not allow me to pick any date but show an error explaining what's wrong for dates that are off limit?

We strongly discourage very long wait times between bet deadline and event date. To enforce this interface does not allow anything more than 4 weeks. If you need more for a particular reason let us know in email or put a note in the item description and we will fix it for you before approval.

Ok, of course you may put rules in place as you please but this one doesn't seam appropriate and the interface appeared to be just broken instead of telling me what's going on.

I don't want people to bet on something that they know the outcome and I don't want the chance for the event to be too low, so how should I do an earthquake bet?

I want to bet on a future event and the earthquake has to occur after the betting deadline and before the event date. So why again would you want this time span to be short? You have bets that end in 2015 and I don't want to trap my money until 2015 which is why I would never bet on these but 2 months of wait for an earthquake is nothing compared to that.

Thinking about timing, I guess what I would enforce is a long betting window. If the event date is after tomorrow I can put a deadline of tomorrow. How many betters do such bets get on average? Sure you get your submission fee but is it worth to approve a bet that nobody sees in time to bet on it?

Why the artificial limit of betting 0.1?Now most bets have really low numbers which makes it hard to bet. I understand that you don't want to have micro-bets but for now I guess they would help a lot. Let me give an example:

There is 0.2 in bets pro Facebook climbing above 35$ and 1.5 against. The betters put chances at 2/(15+2)=12%.If I say chances are higher, I might want to put my money with the statement but doing so would man I see facebooks chances at 3/(15+3)=17%. Sorry I don't feel that confident but I would chip in 0.05 for the chance of getting 0.3BTC=1.5$.

This would again attract the pessimists which would make me more confident to put in more … and in the end, we all pay more ;)

With all the bets starting at 0.1BTC this is even worse as going with the inital better would mean shifting chances by 100%. While I see no problem in smaller bets, I guess the essential part is that the submitter should bet at least 10x the limit for subsequent bets. With 0.1BTC as is that would be 1BTC for the initial submitter or as I would prefer it, 0.01 for subsequent betters.

Why the artificial limit of betting 0.1?Now most bets have really low numbers which makes it hard to bet. I understand that you don't want to have micro-bets but for now I guess they would help a lot. Let me give an example:

There is 0.2 in bets pro Facebook climbing above 35$ and 1.5 against. The betters put chances at 2/(15+2)=12%.If I say chances are higher, I might want to put my money with the statement but doing so would man I see facebooks chances at 3/(15+3)=17%. Sorry I don't feel that confident but I would chip in 0.05 for the chance of getting 0.3BTC=1.5$.

This would again attract the pessimists which would make me more confident to put in more … and in the end, we all pay more ;)

With all the bets starting at 0.1BTC this is even worse as going with the inital better would mean shifting chances by 100%. While I see no problem in smaller bets, I guess the essential part is that the submitter should bet at least 10x the limit for subsequent bets. With 0.1BTC as is that would be 1BTC for the initial submitter or as I would prefer it, 0.01 for subsequent betters.

Feature request: Print the balance in % as in my example

I think you are supposed (as in that's the good strategy) to bet on both sides in the proportion that represents your guess at the odds.

Why the artificial limit of betting 0.1?Now most bets have really low numbers which makes it hard to bet. I understand that you don't want to have micro-bets but for now I guess they would help a lot. Let me give an example:

There is 0.2 in bets pro Facebook climbing above 35$ and 1.5 against. The betters put chances at 2/(15+2)=12%.If I say chances are higher, I might want to put my money with the statement but doing so would man I see facebooks chances at 3/(15+3)=17%. Sorry I don't feel that confident but I would chip in 0.05 for the chance of getting 0.3BTC=1.5$.

This would again attract the pessimists which would make me more confident to put in more … and in the end, we all pay more ;)

With all the bets starting at 0.1BTC this is even worse as going with the inital better would mean shifting chances by 100%. While I see no problem in smaller bets, I guess the essential part is that the submitter should bet at least 10x the limit for subsequent bets. With 0.1BTC as is that would be 1BTC for the initial submitter or as I would prefer it, 0.01 for subsequent betters.

Feature request: Print the balance in % as in my example

I think you are supposed (as in that's the good strategy) to bet on both sides in the proportion that represents your guess at the odds.

If the odds in my head are x% and the others show me y%, the winning strategy is to bet according to that and not put money on the loosing side. If 99% say YES and I see a 10% chance for NO, why should I add to YES 10 times the amount that I put to NO when YES already is at 100x NO and thus 10x over rated? That makes no sense.

If you knew you could get the last bet in I guess it is ok to leave yourself unbalance and take care of it later.

But say you come across it with evenly balanced bets (50%) and you think Side A is 80% to win so you load up on Side A. Now someone else comes along and thinks side A is even more than 80% likely and they bet and now there is so much on A that you prefer B at these odds. You can't unbet A but you can bet on B now.

If you want to make sure you don't end up taking a wager you don't want no matter what happens then you need to bet both sides up front.

If you knew you could get the last bet in I guess it is ok to leave yourself unbalance and take care of it later.

But say you come across it with evenly balanced bets (50%) and you think Side A is 80% to win so you load up on Side A. Now someone else comes along and thinks side A is even more than 80% likely and they bet and now there is so much on A that you prefer B at these odds. You can't unbet A but you can bet on B now.

If you want to make sure you don't end up taking a wager you don't want no matter what happens then you need to bet both sides up front.

I wanna see you on a roulette table betting equal amounts on both red and black. Is this the kind of strategy advise people get at sealswithclubs, too? If all did that, nobody would win except the site owner even if everybody guessed exactly right the likeliness of every event. ... I guess you are just trolling given you are quite a bit into this whole gambling thing.

If you knew you could get the last bet in I guess it is ok to leave yourself unbalance and take care of it later.

But say you come across it with evenly balanced bets (50%) and you think Side A is 80% to win so you load up on Side A. Now someone else comes along and thinks side A is even more than 80% likely and they bet and now there is so much on A that you prefer B at these odds. You can't unbet A but you can bet on B now.

If you want to make sure you don't end up taking a wager you don't want no matter what happens then you need to bet both sides up front.

I wanna see you on a roulette table betting equal amounts on both red and black. Is this the kind of strategy advise people get at sealswithclubs, too? If all did that, nobody would win except the site owner even if everybody guessed exactly right the likeliness of every event. ... I guess you are just trolling given you are quite a bit into this whole gambling thing.

I'm 100% serious. But I'm not saying it is always the best way.

Imaging you know that Side A is 80% to happen and there is little or no action yet and you don't know how much will end up sitting on each side and you have to make your bet(s) right now (going away on safari for a month).

Do you just bet on Side A hoping there won't be more than 80% of the money sitting on side A at the end?

I put down 80% of my bet on Side A and 20% on Side B. That way the worst case scenario for me is break even, that would be when other's bets sit 80/20. If there is more on either side I make some (theoretical) profit.

Now if you know the result 100%, no uncertainty, at all then you put the money down all on one side (same theory as before it just happens to be 100/0 this time).

If you knew you could get the last bet in I guess it is ok to leave yourself unbalance and take care of it later.

But say you come across it with evenly balanced bets (50%) and you think Side A is 80% to win so you load up on Side A. Now someone else comes along and thinks side A is even more than 80% likely and they bet and now there is so much on A that you prefer B at these odds. You can't unbet A but you can bet on B now.

If you want to make sure you don't end up taking a wager you don't want no matter what happens then you need to bet both sides up front.

I wanna see you on a roulette table betting equal amounts on both red and black. Is this the kind of strategy advise people get at sealswithclubs, too? If all did that, nobody would win except the site owner even if everybody guessed exactly right the likeliness of every event. ... I guess you are just trolling given you are quite a bit into this whole gambling thing.

I'm 100% serious. But I'm not saying it is always the best way.

Imaging you know that Side A is 80% to happen and there is little or no action yet and you don't know how much will end up sitting on each side and you have to make your bet(s) right now (going away on safari for a month).

Do you just bet on Side A hoping there won't be more than 80% of the money sitting on side A at the end?

I put down 80% of my bet on Side A and 20% on Side B. That way the worst case scenario for me is break even, that would be when other's bets sit 80/20. If there is more on either side I make some (theoretical) profit.

Now if you know the result 100%, no uncertainty, at all then you put the money down all on one side (same theory as before it just happens to be 100/0 this time).

ok, the safari argument is a good one. still i don't bother betting when is see the others reflecting the odds exactly as I see it as my chances of winning are just too low. when the others "have no clue" i want to profit from that.

If you knew you could get the last bet in I guess it is ok to leave yourself unbalance and take care of it later.

But say you come across it with evenly balanced bets (50%) and you think Side A is 80% to win so you load up on Side A. Now someone else comes along and thinks side A is even more than 80% likely and they bet and now there is so much on A that you prefer B at these odds. You can't unbet A but you can bet on B now.

If you want to make sure you don't end up taking a wager you don't want no matter what happens then you need to bet both sides up front.

I wanna see you on a roulette table betting equal amounts on both red and black. Is this the kind of strategy advise people get at sealswithclubs, too? If all did that, nobody would win except the site owner even if everybody guessed exactly right the likeliness of every event. ... I guess you are just trolling given you are quite a bit into this whole gambling thing.

I'm 100% serious. But I'm not saying it is always the best way.

Imaging you know that Side A is 80% to happen and there is little or no action yet and you don't know how much will end up sitting on each side and you have to make your bet(s) right now (going away on safari for a month).

Do you just bet on Side A hoping there won't be more than 80% of the money sitting on side A at the end?

I put down 80% of my bet on Side A and 20% on Side B. That way the worst case scenario for me is break even, that would be when other's bets sit 80/20. If there is more on either side I make some (theoretical) profit.

Now if you know the result 100%, no uncertainty, at all then you put the money down all on one side (same theory as before it just happens to be 100/0 this time).

ok, the safari argument is a good one. still i don't bother betting when is see the others reflecting the odds exactly as I see it as my chances of winning are just too low. when the others "have no clue" i want to profit from that.

Sure, but all it takes is one person with a clue and a lot of money to come in between the last time you check and the end of the betting period to leave you with a bet that you don't want. On top of that, even if you do check in time you have to have more money available to commit.

coinjedi I asked you in a private message without reply so far but I'm interested in a wider feedback anyway:

Would you mind me betting on you getting killed before Christmas 2012?

I have friends in Iran and for me every bet on them getting attacked feels just as sick. As you review every bet anyway, I would ask you to change your policy to not allow betting on events that involve a high probability of people getting killed.

I know that the betting volumes - or the market cap of bitcoin for that matter - are no incentive to start a war but I'm sure you would not feel comfortable if people bet only 0.1BTC on your death.

coinjedi I asked you in a private message without reply so far but I'm interested in a wider feedback anyway:

Would you mind me betting on you getting killed before Christmas 2012?

I have friends in Iran and for me every bet on them getting attacked feels just as sick. As you review every bet anyway, I would ask you to change your policy to not allow betting on events that involve a high probability of people getting killed.

I know that the betting volumes - or the market cap of bitcoin for that matter - are no incentive to start a war but I'm sure you would not feel comfortable if people bet only 0.1BTC on your death.

I am sorry that I could not get back to your PM. This issue is rightfully a controversial topic not only for us but for various prediction markets as well. We have been criticized both for turning into an assassination market and for performing unnecessary censorship. Current unwritten rule is to decline bets on explicit deaths like "X will die before the end of year" or "There will be a terrorist attack with X casualties", but allow statements on wars between countries. There are several reasons we allow these bets:

Technically (though I should admit unlikely) they don't necessarily involve deaths (attacks to unmanned facilities or drones would count)

It is much more unlikely that this will create incentive for the responsible people because war decisions are usually taken by more than one person, whereas assassinations might be single person initiatives.

We get less complaints and more submissions in this category

These seem to be accepted in popular prediction markets

Facilitating a bet is essentially neutral. It does create as much possible economic incentive for peace as for war

We might learn about the crowd wisdom on the issue, which might be a valuable information

We have been criticized both for turning into an assassination market and for performing unnecessary censorship. Current unwritten rule is to decline bets on explicit deaths like "X will die before the end of year" or "There will be a terrorist attack with X casualties", but allow statements on wars between countries.

Probably if it was written people wouldn't complain about censorship as much. It feels different to be warned beforehand that an obviously controversial topic isn't allowed rather than having a submission, which took time to create, unexpectedly refused because of some hidden rule. On a side note, you might want to add "from non-natural causes" to the die part.

We might learn about the crowd wisdom on the issue, which might be a valuable information

Consider it like being an early warning indicator.

If all of a sudden a bet statement starts looking like someone is pretty sure about an outcome by wagering on it such that it defies general sentiment, I'm going to pay attention. If someone has superior information then a prediction market is a pretty good method to get at that information to some degree.

That statement would be true if the government were to confirm that ET exists. For a while it was just too close for me to feel comfortable. The agree/disagree spread has since widened and now I'm more comfortable stowing away my foil collection and reverting the underground shelter back into its original function as the guest bedroom.

I had little hope to change a policy and assume you thought about your limits beforehand.

Other question about the rules:If I bet on Germany not winning the Euro 2012 (http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=451) and it told me a certain weight, this weight will be reduced if the deadline gets readjusted/the bet gets closed early and if I bet right before the game started, most likely moving the deadline to "the day before the event turned out true or false" will undo my bet. Right?

If I bet on Germany not winning the Euro 2012 (http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=451) and it told me a certain weight, this weight will be reduced if the deadline gets readjusted/the bet gets closed early and if I bet right before the game started, most likely moving the deadline to "the day before the event turned out true or false" will undo my bet. Right?

The bets are not re-weighted if the deadline changes. But in your example if you bet right before the game, yes it will be canceled due to a current software limitation. If that is the case let me know, may be I can do something manually before finalizing the payouts.

If I bet on Germany not winning the Euro 2012 (http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=451) and it told me a certain weight, this weight will be reduced if the deadline gets readjusted/the bet gets closed early and if I bet right before the game started, most likely moving the deadline to "the day before the event turned out true or false" will undo my bet. Right?

The bets are not re-weighted if the deadline changes. But in your example if you bet right before the game, yes it will be canceled due to a current software limitation. If that is the case let me know, may be I can do something manually before finalizing the payouts.

… although "day before the event" might not always be necessary and sometimes too early, I could accept it as a fair rule. If I may still bet during a soccer match until a second before the game is over, this is a joke. Especially when the weighting assumes there is more days to come this pays off better.

Example with bitcoin metrics:Bet we exceed n transaction on a GMT day. If we hit 99% at 8pm I can safely bet true technically before the event which would take place that day with a probability of above 99.99%. Taking this into account, nobody would bet on false as all true betters could wait for the event.

I'ld be interested in seeing a history / statistics page for my account.

e.g., For statistics:

Open: Total wagers, won amount, quantity of wagersWaiting: Total wagers, won amount, quantity of wagersClosed: Total wagers, won amount, quantity of wagersTotal: Total wagers, won amount, quantity of wagers

As far as history, the account page does show statements and bets, but there are no filtering or sorting methods like on the main navigation.

Access to a simple chronological log might be nice instead.

Then again, I clearly remember all my winning bets, and can't think of many where I've lost ::) so maybe the present system works just fine.

I'ld be interested in seeing a history / statistics page for my account.

e.g., For statistics:

Open: Total wagers, won amount, quantity of wagersWaiting: Total wagers, won amount, quantity of wagersClosed: Total wagers, won amount, quantity of wagersTotal: Total wagers, won amount, quantity of wagers

As far as history, the account page does show statements and bets, but there are no filtering or sorting methods like on the main navigation.

Access to a simple chronological log might be nice instead.

That again, I remember my winning bets, and can't think of many where I've lost ::) so maybe the present system works just fine.

Oh yeah I also want to see something that tells me how good I'm doing. Right now it's even hard to tell how much I won per bet but as I try to maximize my win per time, I also would want to know how long my money was trapped (yes, I don't like long running bets).

Also I would want to see a per bet history. With the low volume betting we have now, this might not yet be super interesting but for some events it might be interesting to see the tides turn following real world events. For that I would imagine handy a red-green percentage graph with a black volume-line.

Over as well: http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=388 (http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=388)

Please add an "over" button to the bets so people stop spamming this thread with something that should be handled on the site. Seriously, you might want to have a consolidated view of all claims of a bet being over where people have to provide a link and a comment. Maybe you even want to give an incentive for the first to discover a bet being stale.

Over as well: http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=388 (http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=388)

Please add an "over" button to the bets so people stop spamming this thread with something that should be handled on the site. Seriously, you might want to have a consolidated view of all claims of a bet being over where people have to provide a link and a comment. Maybe you even want to give an incentive for the first to discover a bet being stale.

All the bets that pass their scheduled "event date" seem to get handled promptly, as this specific one would have even without being prompted, I presume. But the bets where the event occurs ahead of schedule are the ones that still must be prodded for review.

A close button as you suggest or other method of notifying the site makes sense.

Over as well: http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=388 (http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=388)

Please add an "over" button to the bets so people stop spamming this thread with something that should be handled on the site. Seriously, you might want to have a consolidated view of all claims of a bet being over where people have to provide a link and a comment. Maybe you even want to give an incentive for the first to discover a bet being stale.

I've added this to our wish list. But in the mean time I'll ask people to email us directly instead of posting here.

I've noticed that gmail is particularly insistent that all messages from bets@betsofbitco.in get placed in my spam folder. I "train" the filter by marking them "not spam", but the .in force is too strong or something else is causing it to remain flagged as spam.

Setting up SPF on your DNS might help the spam algorithm to more correctly identify the legitimacy of the message.

I've noticed that gmail is particularly insistent that all messages from bets@betsofbitco.in get placed in my spam folder. I "train" the filter by marking them "not spam", but the .in force is too strong or something else is causing it to remain flagged as spam.

Setting up SPF on your DNS might help the spam algorithm to more correctly identify the legitimacy of the message.

That's weird, because all mine get through just fine on gmail. SPF is always a good idea, if it hasn't been done already.

Big Brother doesn't need Google's help to know which bet statements I've wagered on nor how much I suck at predicting future events. :-)

Hey, come on :) I would bet you do pretty fine on betsofbitcoin. Your posts often look like encyclopedia entries with 12 references for facts that I never heard of before.

Actually I would love to see an option to make my record public — with or without betting amounts. Wouldn't it be nice to brag about betting right 80% of the time? (Betting right = in this bet I made a profit)

I've noticed that gmail is particularly insistent that all messages from bets@betsofbitco.in get placed in my spam folder. I "train" the filter by marking them "not spam", but the .in force is too strong or something else is causing it to remain flagged as spam.

Setting up SPF on your DNS might help the spam algorithm to more correctly identify the legitimacy of the message.

I submitted what was the 2nd largest bet on the site and once it was over I got less than half a BTC in commission. Sort of disappointing. Perhaps I misunderstood the commission rates?

If there are 1 million BTC bet on "true" and 10 BTC on "wrong" and "true" turns out to be the winner, only 10 BTC would get divided between bettors on "true", the site owner and the submitter.

I even lost quite some moey just by opening a bet and betting 1 BTC on each side to make it more interesting to bet in the first place - if the end result is more skewed than you initially think due to some external factors along the way, even with the "early comer" bonus it doesn't really pay off. It might work out with a exponential instead of linear function, but even this could turn out to be too punishing for early bets.

I still plan to analyze closed bets and see if it would be worthwile to "snipe" bets (e.g. bet 10 BTC always on the high end right before the time runs out) but I fear the simpler bet "pirateat40 won't default before I made back my initial deposit" is more lucrative and less risky to my funds than that.

I submitted what was the 2nd largest bet on the site and once it was over I got less than half a BTC in commission. Sort of disappointing. Perhaps I misunderstood the commission rates?

Submitter gets 5% of the lost bets, which what we get as well. You can PM me if you think that our calculation is wrong. I'll fix it asap.

And this is why for most bet statements that I create I set the bet deadline as early as I can (i.e., a full 30-days before the event date).

For most events, when the event date approaches there is less and less risk to the better as the most-likely outcome becomes more and more certain. So there are more bets occurring as the event date approaches but they do nothing for me, income-wise, as the creator of the statement as they are mostly likely to be on the winning side, which I get no commission for.

This is a cool site. The bet system seems obnoxious at first, but it's really clever. The effective odds of a bet decay over time, so there are diminishing returns as you wait--as it should be. Much simpler than a prediction market, and almost as fair.

I notice that you have unwound "post hoc" bets. Does this mean that if Mitt Romney announced a running mate tomorrow all of the bets after the announcement would be cancelled--or all of the bets after the previous day?

I notice that you have unwound "post hoc" bets. Does this mean that if Mitt Romney announced a running mate tomorrow all of the bets after the announcement would be cancelled--or all of the bets after the previous day?

I believe any bets on the calendar day (a U.S. timezone) that the event occurred and any made after that day are all canceled.

I have about a dozen bet statements currently, and have another dozen from the past that have expired.

A few get a pretty decent amount of participation, but even more have been very sparse -- not earning enough commission to even cover the entry fee (0.1 BTC).

Since all commission earned comes from the losing bets, it would make sense that a bet statement that is profitable is one that is interesting enough to attract bettors but also bets that are uncertain enough that there will be bettors on the losing side.

The most profitable one that I had so far was the one about gas prices. At the time I placed the bet, gas prices were zooming. It got over 10 BTC in bets saying the price would hit $4.25, and before the prices started dropping it got about 10 BTC on the Agree side. When the price started dropping, there was almost no more betting on that side. In the end, I got 0.55 BTC commission (5% of the 11 BTC wagered) for a couple minutes of work, and my bets placed were all on the winning side so I did OK, on a percent return basis.

So the financial success of a bet statement entirely comes from the ability to attract bets that ultimately are on the losing side.

Whomever wrote that one about BS&T defaulting by the end of the year will make out nicely ... up to 15 BTC commission no matter which way it ends is a nice reward for a few minutes of effort.

There are some regular financial bet statements ... like "the price of bitcoin will be X on a certain date" and those work as a low cost "binary option" that speculators like. But there aren't many other topics that get a fair amount of bets. There are a categories that get a lot of bet statements (e.g., sports, olympic results, etc.) but there's not a whole lot of wagering occurring with them.

Does anyone have any suggestions of categories of bets they would like to see?

Marco Rubio will be the GOP nominee for Vice President - http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=291

Here's a another open one:GOP convention will select Ron Paul as vice presidential candidate - http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=463

Here's one that is "waiting" (closed to new bets) and can be ended as well:Mitt Romney Will Choose A Woman As His Running Mate - http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=481

IMHO, all these should probably be in the waiting state now, but none of them can actually be confirmed until the actual convention. What would happen if Paul Ryan were to get hit by a bus? Its not likely that the outcome will change, but it is still possible.

A Higgs Boson particle will be observed before the end of 2012 (http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=272) should be decided.

Quote from: BBC

Now one Higgs-hunting team at the Large Hadron Collider report a "5.9 sigma" levels of certainty it exists.That equates to a one-in-550 million chance if the Higgs did not exist, the team would see these same results. The formal threshold for claiming the discovery of a particle is a 5-sigma level - equivalent to a one-in-3.5 million chance.

IMHO, all these should probably be in the waiting state now, but none of them can actually be confirmed until the actual convention. What would happen if Paul Ryan were to get hit by a bus? Its not likely that the outcome will change, but it is still possible.

This is true; there's a difference between who Mitt Romney picks and who is actually nominated. Although it seems unlikely, Mitt Romney's choice may not be nominated.

This assertion is true if Bitcoin Savings and Trust is unwilling or unable to pay out requested deposits on or before December 31st, 2012 according to the opinion of Bitcointalk.org members on the Bitcoin Savings and Trust Forum Thread.

Since it seems he may be having difficulty repaying is it appropriate to keep the bet open still?

This assertion is true if Bitcoin Savings and Trust is unwilling or unable to pay out requested deposits on or before December 31st, 2012 according to the opinion of Bitcointalk.org members on the Bitcoin Savings and Trust Forum Thread.

Since it seems he may be having difficulty repaying is it appropriate to keep the bet open still?

Relevant:https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=101339.0

The "opinion of the community" that I've seen elsewhere considers "default" event to mean that a certain period of time, perhaps two weeks, has passed from the time the withdrawals are requested. If *all* payouts do actually occur on Monday or so, that probably wouldn't be considered a default for someone whose withdrawal requests from today are not honored.

As hinted in my earlier sig, I had placed bets on BS&T default. Got some nice customer service repeating the default definition, had a chat about betting in general, won a little over 2 weeks after payments stopped, and was able to withdraw right away. Some bets that came in late were reverted, which is the right thing to do, since there was additional information at the time.

Overall, the site made a good impression to me. I'll use it again as soon as there's something I want to bet about. :)

Overall, the site made a good impression to me. I'll use it again as soon as there's something I want to bet about. :)

There are some topics that I wouldn't normally follow but with a minimum bet of only 0.1 BTC (worth a little over $1) it is easy to put some money on it and then get the e-mail alert on the outcome when the bet ends.

For some bets the odds are just not worth it (e.g., the extra-terrestrials bet, you'll lose money no matter if your bet wins or loses with the current odds on it), [edit: I'm an idiot, winning bets always split 90% of the losing bets, no more no less.]. but others are set up to run right through to the event date, and thus it becomes almost a guaranteed win, just with a really low payout.

There was a new bet listing but it is making some assumptions that leaves it unclear.

Statement: Mitt Romney's tax returns will be released before the election day.Description: Romney's tax returns will be released before election day, November 6th, 2012, regardless of how or why they were released.

As hinted in my earlier sig, I had placed bets on BS&T default. Got some nice customer service repeating the default definition, had a chat about betting in general, won a little over 2 weeks after payments stopped, and was able to withdraw right away. Some bets that came in late were reverted, which is the right thing to do, since there was additional information at the time.

Overall, the site made a good impression to me. I'll use it again as soon as there's something I want to bet about. :)

For some bets the odds are just not worth it (e.g., the extra-terrestrials bet, you'll lose money no matter if your bet wins or loses with the current odds on it),

Hey Stephen, I am surprised that one of our most active users didn't noticed that we only get a cut from the losing side. You NEVER lose if your prediction is right, you always get more than what you put albeit a possibly small amount. This was the first rule we put while structuring the fees.

There was a new bet listing but it is making some assumptions that leaves it unclear.

Statement: Mitt Romney's tax returns will be released before the election day.Description: Romney's tax returns will be released before election day, November 6th, 2012, regardless of how or why they were released.

For some bets the odds are just not worth it (e.g., the extra-terrestrials bet, you'll lose money no matter if your bet wins or loses with the current odds on it),

Hey Stephen, I am surprised that one of our most active users didn't noticed that we only get a cut from the losing side. You NEVER lose if your prediction is right, you always get more than what you put albeit a possibly small amount. This was the first rule we put while structuring the fees.

Doh! Brain fart ... I should have remembered that. So I still can make money betting against ET, awesome!

Please allow the bet maker to link a thread in this or any other forum if you don't intend to allow people speculate about things on the site itself. It's much more fun to bet then.

(Also please allow to bet arbitrarily small amounts. If not, please measure how many people that got the error "bets have to be a multiple of 0.01" actually opted to bet more rather than less or 0. I doubt that your server would collapse if it had to compute some more bets.)

Please allow the bet maker to link a thread in this or any other forum if you don't intend to allow people speculate about things on the site itself. It's much more fun to bet then.

You can put a link in the description at submission, or ask us to add one afterwards via email. Are you asking for something else?

Also there is a new subreddit (http://www.reddit.com/r/BetsOfBitcoin/) for the site created by some users.

Well, maybe "allow" was the wrong term. An extra optional field to encourage people to put a discussion link was what I meant. Also I see many non-link urls. Maybe you want to linkify urls in descriptions?

Overall, the site made a good impression to me. I'll use it again as soon as there's something I want to bet about. :)

There are some topics that I wouldn't normally follow but with a minimum bet of only 0.1 BTC (worth a little over $1) it is easy to put some money on it and then get the e-mail alert on the outcome when the bet ends.

For some bets the odds are just not worth it (e.g., the extra-terrestrials bet, you'll lose money no matter if your bet wins or loses with the current odds on it), [edit: I'm an idiot, winning bets always split 90% of the losing bets, no more no less.]. but others are set up to run right through to the event date, and thus it becomes almost a guaranteed win, just with a really low payout.

This whole predictions market captures my interest in a unique way!

I'm a big fan of the site. I've placed several bets so far and haven't had any problems. I do wish there was more activity, though. A lot of the bets are just about the BTC/USD exchange rate, which I find kind of silly. I'll probably increase my use in the future.

A lot of the bets are just about the BTC/USD exchange rate, which I find kind of silly.

People in speculation sub forum telling what the price will be 2 months from now is much sillier. On a bet you get the best prediction you can get. If you feel like you know it better, then you can maybe even improve the accuracy of the prediction.

I'm a big fan of the site. I've placed several bets so far and haven't had any problems. I do wish there was more activity, though. A lot of the bets are just about the BTC/USD exchange rate, which I find kind of silly. I'll probably increase my use in the future.

Silver visits the most successful forecasters in a range of areas, from hurricanes to baseball, from the poker table to the stock market, from Capitol Hill to the NBA. He explains and evaluates how these forecasters think and what bonds they share. What lies behind their success? Are they good—or just lucky? What patterns have they unraveled? And are their forecasts really right? He explores unanticipated commonalities and exposes unexpected juxtapositions. And sometimes, it is not so much how good a prediction is in an absolute sense that matters but how good it is relative to the competition. In other cases, prediction is still a very rudimentary—and dangerous—science.

Silver observes that the most accurate forecasters tend to have a superior command of probability, and they tend to be both humble and hardworking. They distinguish the predictable from the unpredictable, and they notice a thousand little details that lead them closer to the truth. Because of their appreciation of probability, they can distinguish the signal from the noise.

- http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/159420411X <-- This title will be released on September 27, 2012.

His lending thread:https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=81927.0He owes about 10.000 BTC to his lenders (deleted the OP)

I understand that you only have a legal obligation with Nick, but supporting him by sending those funds must be illegal in your country too.Therefore i ask to freeze the funds immediately until this situation has been resolved.

Uhm, interesting :)Ok, I have 1BTC in that bet from being more or less the first to take the agree side. Does your post mean I won? :) I mean I didn't investigate the situation but felt somehow save to side with the agree position given 300:0 in the bet at that time.What is your proof about sock puppets? Would that mean that bets of bitcoin should freeze bets in the future in case they might come from shady business? I did not have to register with my real name and wonder how they should enforce such checks.

The bet itsself is not the problem, as it is not based on NCKRAZZEs business, but Vescuderos (which is a victim of Nick by accident too)Its more the problem that Nick fraudulently acquired the funds to place the bet on Vescudero.That is also the reason, why he has been given the scammer tag on this forum.

So you suggest to "only" remove 300BTC from the 307BTC side of a 307BTC vs. 27BTC bet? Basically the 300BTC that were the initial bet that were part of the bet submission? How is that "The bet itsself is not the problem"?

I mean I didn't investigate the situation but felt somehow save to side with the agree position given 300:0 in the bet at that time.

Exactly the problem. If the outcome on the bet statement ends favoring those that bet "Agree", then freezing the 300 BTC is taking that amount not from the scammer that placed the losing bet but from those who placed bets that ultimately ended up winners. And as giszmo describes, wagers on that bet statement might not even have been made without the bet being so lopsided as it was.

Would that mean that bets of bitcoin should freeze bets in the future in case they might come from shady business? I did not have to register with my real name and wonder how they should enforce such checks.

That would be quite impossible to determine, right?

I hope there is not even a hint of applying "taint" here. Bitcoins are fungible, whether or not they come from funds that were obtained from a scam.

We have no right, ability or interest in playing the police. There is no way to determine the origin of the bet, "rightful" owners or a new distribution scheme. We will make the distribution as usual. It seems that Vescudero did not default so far.

We have no right, ability or interest in playing the police. There is no way to determine the origin of the bet, "rightful" owners or a new distribution scheme. We will make the distribution as usual. It seems that Vescudero did not default so far.

you sound like you know he did not default?

(As much as I felt very stupid to fall for this 300BTC bet right after placing my 1BTC I now feel slight chances of not loosing it. How is "default" determined when people claim he owes them money and he claims not to be in default?)

(Special "lol" for scammer tag being a clear sign of somebody being evil.)

Here is my understanding of the situation:The bet is on Vescudero's investment scheme, which does not seem to default so far.

MoinCoin thinks that the statement and the large bets on it is created by NCKRAZZE, who did run another investment scheme himself. He seems to run away with other's money. MoinCoin thinks that the source of the large bets is from this scheme, so we should freeze the account. This is not something we would do.

Can we get a ruling on this? it's been over a week since the event date?

That might have been a little confusing. The results that they label "September" are released in October. The bet statement does say "This statement asserts that in the October 1, 2012 release" ... but it is possible the evaluation of that statement was waiting for results labeled "October", which will not happen for a month and would be the wrong results.

Can we get a ruling on this? it's been over a week since the event date?

That might have been a little confusing. The results that they label "September" are released in October. The bet statement does say "This statement asserts that in the October 1, 2012 release" ... but it is possible the evaluation of that statement was waiting for results labeled "October", which will not happen for a month and would be the wrong results.

Incidentally, I lost on that one.

In context though, the title of the bet is "iOS market share will be above 60% by Oct 1, 2012". So they're referring to September results released in the beginning of October.

I've noticed that gmail is particularly insistent that all messages from bets@betsofbitco.in get placed in my spam folder. I "train" the filter by marking them "not spam", but the .in force is too strong or something else is causing it to remain flagged as spam.

Setting up SPF on your DNS might help the spam algorithm to more correctly identify the legitimacy of the message.

I'll look into SPF.

$ dig @ns-canada.topdns.com betsofbitco.in txt

gives:

;; ANSWER SECTION:betsofbitco.in. 3600 IN TXT "v=spf1 a -all"

And because I have a spam filter service that relays messages to me, that filter rule will always cause a hard-fail.

If you change that to softfail, ... "~all" instead of "-all", then my spam filter can at least be sane.

I see others recommend softfail as being recommended for when the mail destinations (recipients) are not under a company-controlled set. Here's one recommendation affirming softfail as being less draconian: - http://serverfault.com/a/355513

It revolves around the "18:00-23:59 close price in the Mt.Gox one month chart"

1. Is the Mtgox.com chart time EST? Where does it say so?

2. Also 18:00-23:59 I suppose you'd see this interval only on certain screen resolutions, on mine the last interval is actually 16:00-23:59. I suppose the bet refers to it?

I think they use UTC-1, but it doesn't really matter as long as they consistently show everybody the same time (which I think they do). You should be able to confirm that October 2nd's closing price is $12.83. Please send me a screenshot if you see something else.

Is there a post or another thread that mentions strategy? Also, considering that early betters have an advantage, is it profitable to create a Statement and bet equal amounts for each side?

If enough people posted bets to your statement, couldn't you make a profit, regardless of the results?

I am not aware of any strategy discussions. But obviously, what you suggested is possible. Also remember statement submitter's get 5% of the losing side. Submitting a popular statement is very profitable.

… so I wanted to post about my bet on facebook and came across some issues:

Images grab attention! Allow the creator of a bet to provide an image as well. No only would that help to get your site look 1.000.000 times cooler but also would it help to get facebook posts get read. If nothing else, please at least put some image on every page so you get your logo posted.

The headline in my fb-post should grab attention. "Bets of Bitcoin" is boring. Make it the title of the bet.

Make it show the text of the bet

All this information is grabbed from the site without any fb-connect voodoo and should works fine for sites that follow best practice html rules.

(Also: All bets are done. Please tell me at least now how much I can win if I win. For you it is just a line of code as all the vote weights are in place. For your users it's looking up the formula and punching in the numbers for each bet. This sux! Yes, I said that before but it still sux sux sux!)

I hate to be a wet blanket on some light-hearted bet statements, but i don't think this bet statement is suitable for BetsOfBitco.in - http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=871

Technically, it should be disallowed because the outcome is easily manipulated.

But even if it wasn't, the statement's scope is much too narrow in focus to be of interest to anyone except the two people in on the joke.

Well, I rejected it once but the submitter took effort to write it again and made it as precise as possible. Still not my favorite bet, but we try to accommodate everyone as long as it is precise enough. If you don't like it either, just ignore. The site is mostly for fun, don't over think.

I hate to be a wet blanket on some light-hearted bet statements, but i don't think this bet statement is suitable for BetsOfBitco.in - http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=871

Technically, it should be disallowed because the outcome is easily manipulated.

But even if it wasn't, the statement's scope is much too narrow in focus to be of interest to anyone except the two people in on the joke.

I won't suggest what BoB should do, but in general I think manipulable statements can be great. This one essentially pays girls to come out to play. And, this or a similar statement could be used to indicate that it won't (or will) be a sausage fest.

With yesterday's lawsuit by the CFTC against Intrade, it is possible this site will receive communications from the CFTC, including possibly the demand that no U.S. subscribers be allowed to place wagers. This may also involve the domain being taken over, as India ( .in TLD) would likely comply with a request (or initiate a takeover on their own once being notified.)

How will Bets Of Bitcoin respond should this happen?

Let's say the site were to resurface with a .bit (namecoin) domain, or as a Tor hidden service, or just some other domain -- how could a player know to trust that it truly is coinjedi that is operating at the new domain?

One way of ensuring the authenticity of communications would be for coinjedi to provide here a public key so that at some later time if necessary, a signed message (GPG) on the site would then suffice as a method to verify that coinjedi is in control of the site at a new location. But I've never seen a public key for coinjedi.

With yesterday's lawsuit by the CFTC against Intrade, it is possible this site will receive communications from the CFTC, including possibly the demand that no U.S. subscribers be allowed to place wagers. This may also involve the domain being taken over, as India ( .in TLD) would likely comply with a request (or initiate a takeover on their own once being notified.)

How will Bets Of Bitcoin respond should this happen.

Let's say the site were to resurface with a .bit (namecoin) domain, or as a Tor hidden service, or just some other domain -- how could a player know to trust that it truly is coinjedi that is operating at the new domain?

One way of ensuring the authenticity of communications would be for coinjedi to provide here a public key so that at some later time if necessary, a signed message (GPG) on the site would then suffice as a method to verify that coinjedi is in control of the site at a new location. But I've never seen a public key for coinjedi.

What are you talking about? A site like this is not going to go rogue on tor. Hardly any money in it at all right now. Why break the law?

Jedi will hopefully try to return all money to depositors and close up shop.

Alternatively, he will run off with the money (including my own). Those are the two plausible options.

With yesterday's lawsuit by the CFTC against Intrade, it is possible this site will receive communications from the CFTC, including possibly the demand that no U.S. subscribers be allowed to place wagers. This may also involve the domain being taken over, as India ( .in TLD) would likely comply with a request (or initiate a takeover on their own once being notified.)

How will Bets Of Bitcoin respond should this happen.

Let's say the site were to resurface with a .bit (namecoin) domain, or as a Tor hidden service, or just some other domain -- how could a player know to trust that it truly is coinjedi that is operating at the new domain?

One way of ensuring the authenticity of communications would be for coinjedi to provide here a public key so that at some later time if necessary, a signed message (GPG) on the site would then suffice as a method to verify that coinjedi is in control of the site at a new location. But I've never seen a public key for coinjedi.

What are you talking about? A site like this is not going to go rogue on tor. Hardly any money in it at all right now. Why break the law?

Jedi will hopefully try to return all money to depositors and close up shop.

Alternatively, he will run off with the money (including my own). Those are the two plausible options.

What are YOU talking about? betsofbitcoin is a great service and has to survive somehow. If it reappears somewhere suddenly asking you to provide all kind of identification I want to know who's in control. Also thousands of bitcoins is not much in terms of a company's holdings but in terms of dozens of customers it is a lot to each of these.On the other hand I don't see how a signed message would help. Maybe he's forced to cooperate in whatever bullshit.The Bitcoin ecosystem is like a served dinner with the kids still playing with their dollar bills. The betsofbitcoin-soup is getting cold. Mummy will heat it up but if the kids eat out tonight it's not worth the hassle.

Coinjedi, I emailed you a little while back requesting a change from my mistakenly written "August 1st" to "April 1st" in the description of my statement. You misinterpreted what I meant and edited the title from "April 1st" to "August 1st". As you can see, the event date is April 1st, 2013.

Can you please make the following changes to the statement (http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=855)?:

Title:

Quote

"The r/Bitcoin subreddit will have at least 15k subscribers by April 1st, 2013"

Description:

Quote

"This statement is true if the r/Bitcoin community on Reddit.com reaches 15,000 subscribers before April 1st, 2013"

I'm considering placing a large bet on an event that won't be settled for several years. My biggest concern is that the website will still be around in several years. Can you please address these two concerns?

#1 Do you plan on operating this site several years from now?

#2 What contingency plans do you have if the state comes down on you? I would feel more confident knowing there is a Tor site already up and verified by you as a backup just in case the clear net site gets closed down. Or, if not that, at least a signed signature so that if you later have to set up a Tor or i2p site that you can verify it is yours by your signed signature.

Once I feel confident that your site will still be up in several years I'll place my bet. Thanks!

I'm considering placing a large bet on an event that won't be settled for several years. My biggest concern is that the website will still be around in several years. Can you please address these two concerns?

#1 Do you plan on operating this site several years from now?

#2 What contingency plans do you have if the state comes down on you? I would feel more confident knowing there is a Tor site already up and verified by you as a backup just in case the clear net site gets closed down. Or, if not that, at least a signed signature so that if you later have to set up a Tor or i2p site that you can verify it is yours by your signed signature.

Once I feel confident that your site will still be up in several years I'll place my bet. Thanks!

lol :) I was considering placing a bet on BoB being offline within a month. Actually your concerns are why I never bet on any event longer than 30 days away. I hope this will change though.

Instead of seeking regulatory approval, Bets of Bitcoin focuses on financial privacy and anonymity so that it’s irrelevant where the customers are geographically located. Anyone can create a bet statement and new bets are vetted by moderators to eliminate unwanted bets or bets whose outcome can’t be easily determined or is easily manipulated.

Hardcore Intrade addicts can also turn to the tiny prediction market Bets of Bitcoin, where some believe converting your dollars to the internet currency Bitcoin circumvents laws around commodity options because the site isn't using a government-recognized currency.

Would it be a good idea to be able to post questions/remarks on specific statements?

For example I am looking at " Existence of extraterrestrials to be officially confirmed by US government by the end of 2012", and I want to make sure we are talking about "Grey" alien-type stuff here, consciously visiting earth, not some sort of bacteria reaching earth from mars on an asteroid or whatever. Seems like this is the intention, but I would not want to get screwed on technicalities.

Also, I am quite sure there is no way to lose money if your bet is correct, but a confirmation of this would ease my mind, I am not used to betting online :).

Would it be a good idea to be able to post questions/remarks on specific statements?

For example I am looking at " Existence of extraterrestrials to be officially confirmed by US government by the end of 2012", and I want to make sure we are talking about "Grey" alien-type stuff here, consciously visiting earth, not some sort of bacteria reaching earth from mars on an asteroid or whatever. Seems like this is the intention, but I would not want to get screwed on technicalities.

Also, I am quite sure there is no way to lose money if your bet is correct, but a confirmation of this would ease my mind, I am not used to betting online :).

You can always email or PM us if you need any clarification.

Description of the item says it requires ETs to "visit" Earth. Since "visiting" is a conscious act, such technicalities would not count.

Also there is no way to get less than what you put if you are on the right side. We only get a commission from the losing side, not the total bets.

Would it be a good idea to be able to post questions/remarks on specific statements?

For example I am looking at " Existence of extraterrestrials to be officially confirmed by US government by the end of 2012", and I want to make sure we are talking about "Grey" alien-type stuff here, consciously visiting earth, not some sort of bacteria reaching earth from mars on an asteroid or whatever. Seems like this is the intention, but I would not want to get screwed on technicalities.

Also, I am quite sure there is no way to lose money if your bet is correct, but a confirmation of this would ease my mind, I am not used to betting online :).

You can always email or PM us if you need any clarification.

Description of the item says it requires ETs to "visit" Earth. Since "visiting" is a conscious act, such technicalities would not count.

Also there is no way to get less than what you put if you are on the right side. We only get a commission from the losing side, not the total bets.

I have an idea to possibly improve bets of bitcoin - it's not something that needs to change with the platform, just the way submitters control their own submissions.

Problem:Some propositions end up with very small or zero bets on either side. For example, nearly every sports bet the is expiring in the next week have < 0.5 BTC (some have only 0.1 BTC total bet). That, effectively, kills any incentive for someone to place a bet in a contest that is expected to be close. It also kills the return for the submitter and the return for the website.

Solution:The submitter should place funds on the proposition in proportion to what they think the odds are. Similar to what traditional sports books do, you are seeding the odds to encourage betting. No one will bet on a prop with < 0.1 BTC total, so the submitter will never win. But if the submitter put 5 BTC on each side (thinking that there is an even chance of an event occuring), then many others will feel fine placing 0.1 BTC bets at decent odds. The submitter accepts a bit more risk but allows the market to actually work.

How the platform can incorporate this:Right now, you don't need to do anything to implement this: "smart" submitters will realize it is in their best interest to create a compelling proposition to earn themselves more BTC. However, the platform can do something like the following during submission:

Do you want to make the initial market to encourage others to bet?yes/no

How much are you willing to seed the market with?X BTC

What do you feel the odds of your proposition becoming "true" is?Y percent

the system then places Y percent of X BTC on yes and the rest on no.

Perhaps this initial seed can be exempt of site fees as well.

This problem can also be fixed by allowing the issue of "floating" shares, but then you get into the whole problem of being registered as an exchange, etc.

One of your bets at Bets of Bitcoin has been canceled. We have determined that a major event related to the statement happened and this justified a change in deadline. Your bet has been placed after the updated deadline, therefore canceled and refunded. Details are below:

Statement: Gold will surpass $1800/oz at any point on or before December 31, 2012Your side: DisagreeYour bet amount: **removed**Reason: Reference market is closed on 28th of December.

Bets of Bitcoinhttp://betsofbitco.in

Reference market was closed for a day and that's a reason to change the deadline?

Reference market was closed for a day and that's a reason to change the deadline?

It is not reasonable to expect that Bets of Bitcoin to be a domain expert regarding every detail of every bet statement submitted.

In this instance,the bet submitter didn't know to specify the proper bet deadline. [Edited] The deadline couldn't be December 31st, because that is the day the event occurs, and thus if it still were open the site would continue taking bets placed after the outcome was already known. So the earliest deadline for this bet then became December 27th. [Edit: Incorrect. The reference market did trade on December 31st.]

This is no different from the message you'll see at a casino: "machine malfunction voids all payouts".

Your wager wasn't lost. The bets made after the revised deadline were returned to bettors.

In this instance,the bet submitter didn't know to specify the proper bet deadline. The deadline couldn't be December 31st, because that is the day the event occurs, and thus if it still were open the site would continue taking bets placed after the outcome was already known.

I placed my bet on Dec 28.

It looks like the Reference market was active on Dec 31st (until 17:14) and the event date was Dec. 31, 2012 end of day Eastern Time. Was it known? ???

It looks like the Reference market was active on Dec 31st (until 17:14) and the event date was Dec. 31, 2012 end of day Eastern Time. Was it known? ???

http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=503

I see. Since the bet deadline is always at least one day prior to the event date, there was no reason to change it because the event date did not change -- the reference market was trading on December 31st. So it doesn't seem justified for the deadline to have changed in this instance.

Damn. I've lost my login credentials for the site, I didn't sign up with any thing memorable as I was only testing the site out, but I ended up placing a bet.Is there any way to recover them?I placed a small 0.1BTC bet, I know it is only small, but that's pretty much all I own :-\

I'm curious about this one. It was a poorly written bet statement at best, or deceptively written to get people to bet on the losing side.

Fugitive Ex-LAPD Officer Chris Dorner Will Be Apprehended by Law Enforcement by end of day 2/28 ESTAt-large fugitive Christopher Dorner will be apprehended by law enforcement by February 28, 11:59pm EST. - http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=1215

The timeline shows that he was cornered in the cabin that was set fire on Feb 12th. His body was positively identified on Feb 14th.

He (living Chris Dorner) was never apprehended, so I think False would be the outcome, though I'm not entirely certain. He died without being apprehended so I'm pretty sure True would be the wrong outcome. Maybe a wash (and refund of all bets?)

If it is decided as False, I wonder what date was the event date. The 12th? ... thus only bets made on Feb 11th (the date the bet statement was placed) are valid, with all others getting returned?

I'm curious about this one. It was a poorly written bet statement at best, or deceptively written to get people to bet on the losing side.Fugitive Ex-LAPD Officer Chris Dorner Will Be Apprehended by Law Enforcement by end of day 2/28 ESTAt-large fugitive Christopher Dorner will be apprehended by law enforcement by February 28, 11:59pm EST. - http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=1215The timeline shows that he was cornered in the cabin that was set fire on Feb 12th. His body was positively identified on Feb 14th.He (living Chris Dorner) was never apprehended, so I think False would be the outcome, though I'm not entirely certain. He died without being apprehended so I'm pretty sure True would be the wrong outcome. Maybe a wash (and refund of all bets?) If it is decided as False, I wonder what date was the event date. The 12th? ... thus only bets made on Feb 11th (the date the bet statement was placed) are valid, with all others getting returned?

I didn't bet myself but I think False should be the outcome because he was NOT apprehended.

Well, it's been more than a couple of hours. As food for thought, here is a bet to consider:

Prediction: Bets of Bitcoin won't be back online.

Rationale: Whenever a sufficiently anonymous service is entrusted with bitcoin without sufficient collateral, and the amount thus entrusted is large in comparison to the profitability of the service,that service will seize to exist when the ratio of coins coming in to the coins going out turns negative.

Well, it's been more than a couple of hours. As food for thought, here is a bet to consider:

Prediction: Bets of Bitcoin won't be back online.

Rationale: Whenever a sufficiently anonymous service is entrusted with bitcoin without sufficient collateral, and the amount thus entrusted is large in comparison to the profitability of the service,that service will seize to exist when the ratio of coins coming in to the coins going out turns negative.

Deadline: January 1, 2014.

It's a risk. But coinjedi has always been very professional in my experience. I think the number/value of bitcoins being bet is also increasing, so his profits should be going up too. I am hopeful he is going for a long-term business-model with steady (growing) income instead of becoming another quick buck scammer.

Our service provider is having intermittent technical problems for the last few days. We are doing our best for uninterrupted service. Everything looks fine at the moment but let us know if you have any connection issues.

Just initiated a withdrawal, and it was broadcast with no fee! I might have to wait a long time before some generous miner includes the transaction.

Please consider at least allowing me to add a fee from my account for quick processing.

Thanks!

As a user I always like to have options too.

In this particular case we follow the fee suggestions of the Satoshi client. Fee is not the only factor for miners. Large transactions and old bitcoins in the account have priority as well. Client suggests a fee if the priority is low and it is automatically deducted from your account. So far we didn't have any issues with stuck transactions. Let us know if you think the transactions take too long.

The bet "Oz the Great and Powerful (2013) will gross at least $125 million in the US by April 8th, 2013. (http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=1151)" is true, according to data from BoxOfficeMojo.com (http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=oz.htm) on 3/18/2013:

I have been looking for info on betsofbitcoins, but didnt find it.Can someone explain me how much return I would get for 10btc on the current Mtgox 110$ bet? I dont get it. 6.5 say yes, 1.7 say no - so, I will get like 0.2x?

I have been looking for info on betsofbitcoins, but didnt find it.Can someone explain me how much return I would get for 10btc on the current Mtgox 110$ bet? I dont get it. 6.5 say yes, 1.7 say no - so, I will get like 0.2x?

You can check the "How are the losing bets distributed?" question on our help page (http://betsofbitco.in/help) for an example.

I have been looking for info on betsofbitcoins, but didnt find it.Can someone explain me how much return I would get for 10btc on the current Mtgox 110$ bet? I dont get it. 6.5 say yes, 1.7 say no - so, I will get like 0.2x?

You can check the "How are the losing bets distributed?" question on our help page (http://betsofbitco.in/help) for an example.

Yea, I read that, I found it very confusing. Maybe I am too dumb for that.

Litecoin Will Reach At Least $1.20 By April 15th 2013 On BTC-e.com for the days high.

Does this not indicate that the bet will be closed whenever the condition is true? Since litecoin has been over $1.20 at btc-e.com for a long time, should not the bet be settled ?

Or do I misunderstand ? Is the bet about whether or not the high of LTC reaches at least $1.20 that particular day ?

http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=1129

Quote

Two million people will be without electricity due to a natural event before April, 15 2013

This statement is true if at a given time before April 15, 2013, two millions people or more in North America are simultaneously without electricity due to a natural event.It can be caused by tsunami, earthquake, solar flare or what ever is natural.

Isn't this rather vague ? If there's a major outage for whatever reason, how can anyone know if 1.9 or 2.1 million people are without electricity. And when you say people, how do you count them ? If someone has all the family coming over from Italy for a wedding, then that house will have more people than normal, while others may be on vacation, thus having homes with zero people at the time of the possible 'event'.

Also, the defintion of what's natural is vague. If an operator of some heavy machinery gets a heart attack, and his crane cuts a major powerline, then you may say that his heart attack is a natural cause, but the line was cut by a man-made machine, so what would it be ?

I think it may be better to rephrase it and include the exact scenarios that are accepted as a possible reason, for instance: Eartquake, Flooding, Thunderstorm. There should be no 'etc' and 'so on', that leaves too much to be desired.

Perhaps a better bed would have to be something to the extent of:

Quote

There will be a major natural electric outage lasting 5 hours or more before April, 15 2013, confirmed to be a natural disaster by at least one major local newspaper.

This statement is true if at a given time before April 15, 2013 (what's that - in america, europe or what - shouldn't time stamps be given so there will be no need to discuss it ?) the largest local newspaper somewhere in North-America reports on a major electrical outage causes by a natural cause limited to: Earth quake, flooding, solar flare, thunderstorm, (put in more that would fit here)

Also, I think times should be given as: Sunday 31 March 2013 01:00 GMT or at least as UTC or CET. Preferrably the same format should be used throughout the site.

And is there a way to work out exactly how much you're going to win if you win ? If I bet on something with 0.2 BTC, I would be very interested in knowing my odds ? Or does one not know until betting is settled?

I have been looking for info on betsofbitcoins, but didnt find it.Can someone explain me how much return I would get for 10btc on the current Mtgox 110$ bet? I dont get it. 6.5 say yes, 1.7 say no - so, I will get like 0.2x?

You can check the "How are the losing bets distributed?" question on our help page (http://betsofbitco.in/help) for an example.

Yea, I read that, I found it very confusing. Maybe I am too dumb for that.

It is not the most user friendly. Perhaps some sliders and a neat web interface would do it ?

coinjedi, why did you change the bet deadline of my bet (Are BFL ASICs real and doing 350+ Mhash/Joule) (http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=665)? I had set it to June 30, but it now reads April 21.

It seems that you decided to close it prematurely because BFL started shipping. Why? BFL will release multiple products between now and June 30, leaving the bet undecided about whether one of these products will achieve 350 Mhash/Joule or not.

coinjedi, why did you change the bet deadline of my bet (Are BFL ASICs real and doing 350+ Mhash/Joule) (http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=665)? I had set it to June 30, but it now reads April 21.

It seems that you decided to close it prematurely because BFL started shipping. Why? BFL will release multiple products between now and June 30, leaving the bet undecided about whether one of these products will achieve 350 Mhash/Joule or not.

Probably made the assumption that the device shipped met the criteria, and thus the outcome known at this point. I'm presuming what shipped doesn't meet the criteria thus the bet should remain open (as there could be yet another product shipped before the deadline that does meet the criteria).

Probably made the assumption that the device shipped met the criteria, and thus the outcome known at this point. I'm presuming what shipped doesn't meet the criteria thus the bet should remain open (as there could be et another product shipped before the deadline that does meet the criteria).

Exactly. The bet should have remained open. coinjedi, any answer on that?

Probably made the assumption that the device shipped met the criteria, and thus the outcome known at this point. I'm presuming what shipped doesn't meet the criteria thus the bet should remain open (as there could be et another product shipped before the deadline that does meet the criteria).

Exactly. The bet should have remained open. coinjedi, any answer on that?

Probably made the assumption that the device shipped met the criteria, and thus the outcome known at this point. I'm presuming what shipped doesn't meet the criteria thus the bet should remain open (as there could be et another product shipped before the deadline that does meet the criteria).

Exactly. The bet should have remained open. coinjedi, any answer on that?

We do not always close bets when the outcome is absolutely certain. For example we close a bet on a product shipping date, when the company announces an official shipping date, but we do not payout until they actually do. We judged that in this case starting of the initial batch releases significant enough information for the purposes of closing the bets. Initial reports tell that the performance does not meet the criteria, so we will wait until the announced event date in case they ship another product.

If you are the submitter and think that our decision is unreasonable, please contact in private and we will reimburse your submission fee. If you would like to continue betting on this event please submit a new statement so that the betting can continue under the new conditions.

Probably made the assumption that the device shipped met the criteria, and thus the outcome known at this point. I'm presuming what shipped doesn't meet the criteria thus the bet should remain open (as there could be et another product shipped before the deadline that does meet the criteria).

Exactly. The bet should have remained open. coinjedi, any answer on that?

We do not always close bets when the outcome is absolutely certain. For example we close a bet on a product shipping date, when the company announces an official shipping date, but we do not payout until they actually do. We judged that in this case starting of the initial batch releases significant enough information for the purposes of closing the bets. Initial reports tell that the performance does not meet the criteria, so we will wait until the announced event date in case they ship another product.

If you are the submitter and think that our decision is unreasonable, please contact in private and we will reimburse your submission fee. If you would like to continue betting on this event please submit a new statement so that the betting can continue under the new conditions.

What you missed is that the outcome of the BFL bet is not certain. They seem to be merely 46% off the bet's 350 Mh/J limit (239 Mhash/J at 12V == 191 Mhash/J at the wall) and they are currently working on redesigning the power supply circuitry to make it more efficient...

The fact that the amounts bet on each side did not vary much in the last weeks before you closed it proves my point: bettors were not certain which side was going to win.

Beside, even if the outcome was certain, why are you closing it anyway? Why not let people bet on the side that is "so certain" to win?

"Your request can not be completed at this time. We are working hard to fix it. Please, try again later.Your Bitcoins and data are safe and backed up regularly."

been doing that for days

Withdrawals are not disabled. We'll check our logs. If the problem persists can you PM me your OS and browser. Thanks for letting us know. Also I can generate a withdrawal for you right away if you want.

Question for Coinjedi: I'm trying to reconcile all my BTC accounts. I'd like a complete record of all the money that went round with my bets on your site. Under the 'Account' Tab there's a button saying 'Your most recent transactions' which is okay but obviously I want ALL of them not just the most recent. How can I get hold of the older ones?

The certificate is not known by its supposed issuer. It is not valid. In the worst case it may be used by criminals for fraudulent purposes. The website owner must immediately replace the certificate.

In Firefox :

Code:

Secure Connection Failed

An error occurred during a connection to betsofbitco.in.

The OCSP server has no status for the certificate.

(Error code: sec_error_ocsp_unknown_cert)

The page you are trying to view cannot be shown because the authenticity of the received data could not be verified. Please contact the website owners to inform them of this problem. Alternatively, use the command found in the help menu to report this broken site.

Their first chip, the Golden Nonce (GN) microprocessor, is in the final stages of development. The GN will ‘tape-out’ and be sent to manufacturing in August. Fabrication will take a little bit over two months, and the chips will ship to customers in October.

The GN chip will perform more than 400 Ghash per second, and uses as little as 10% of the power per Ghash as the current-generation ASICs.

Current-generation ASICs power per Ghash is defined as 1W for 1Ghash.

HashFast's GN Bitcoin mining microprocessor will ship to a buying customer on, or before October 31st, 2013, must hash more than 400 Ghash per second, and only draw a maximum of 40W.

Editor's note: We will judge the statement according to the forum posts. We will call it a draw if we think that there is not enough evidence either way.

It seems to me that the description of this bet changed after I placed my bet: http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=1210

It now says: "* http://www.Bitcoinx.org is working on a decentralized exchange for "colored coins", but there is doubt as to whether such coins will maintain their nominal face values when pegged to commodities and currencies. "

I agree that that usdCoins, goldcoins, oilCoins, etc can be issued and backed by a central issuer. And if they back it I expect their price to be similar to their real/paper courterparties.What I don't believe is you can do this without trusting an issuer, which is what mastercoin attempts to do and what I bet against.

Did I read that part too fast when I bet or has it really changed after I did it?If it changed, I want to take back my bet, I've been talking about usdCoins with an issuer inside the chain for years, before the term "colored coins" was even coined.

It seems to me that the description of this bet changed after I placed my bet: http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=1210

It now says: "* http://www.Bitcoinx.org is working on a decentralized exchange for "colored coins", but there is doubt as to whether such coins will maintain their nominal face values when pegged to commodities and currencies. "

I agree that that usdCoins, goldcoins, oilCoins, etc can be issued and backed by a central issuer. And if they back it I expect their price to be similar to their real/paper courterparties.What I don't believe is you can do this without trusting an issuer, which is what mastercoin attempts to do and what I bet against.

Did I read that part too fast when I bet or has it really changed after I did it?If it changed, I want to take back my bet, I've been talking about usdCoins with an issuer inside the chain for years, before the term "colored coins" was even coined.

I wrote that bet, and it hasn't changed.

Everybody knows that colored coins exist, but I personally doubt they will be able to maintain parity with their underlying asset, due to risk of default by the issuer. That is, I don't think USDCoins will be able to hold a value of $1 each. Consequently, I don't think you'll lose your bet due to colored coins.

Everybody knows that colored coins exist, but I personally doubt they will be able to maintain parity with their underlying asset, due to risk of default by the issuer. That is, I don't think USDCoins will be able to hold a value of $1 each. Consequently, I don't think you'll lose your bet due to colored coins.

I think I will lose my bet because of it. If there's reliable issuers that keep their promises I think they will have parity.For national currencies like usd or eur is very easy and already happening with bitstampUSD on ripple(tm), for example.

Exactly, I know you think it is possible to make p2p derivatives through a deterministic fund with mastercoin/bitcoin reserves and that's what I intuitively think that can be exploited and want to bet against.Maybe we can create another bet we are both comfortable in the opposite sides.Would you bet on a similar prediction excluding the centralized issuer with real reserves approach as a mean to achieve the "assetCoins parity"?

Everybody knows that colored coins exist, but I personally doubt they will be able to maintain parity with their underlying asset, due to risk of default by the issuer. That is, I don't think USDCoins will be able to hold a value of $1 each. Consequently, I don't think you'll lose your bet due to colored coins.

I think I will lose my bet because of it. If there's reliable issuers that keep their promises I think they will have parity.For national currencies like usd or eur is very easy and already happening with bitstampUSD on ripple(tm), for example.

Exactly, I know you think it is possible to make p2p derivatives through a deterministic fund with mastercoin/bitcoin reserves and that's what I intuitively think that can be exploited and want to bet against.Maybe we can create another bet we are both comfortable in the opposite sides.Would you bet on a similar prediction excluding the centralized issuer with real reserves approach as a mean to achieve the "assetCoins parity"?

I would, except I spent all my bitcoins on MasterCoins! :)

I literally have almost zero bitcoins left! If I get more bitcoins, I might set up another bet.

I literally have almost zero bitcoins left! If I get more bitcoins, I might set up another bet.

Hehehe, I understand.I have also spent most of my bitcoins on freicoins.Suddenly my lately preferred way to buy btc was more restricted and I would like to explore other ways...I have some because [spolier]Skyler behaved as expected[/spolier], but maybe it's not the right time to bet on this.I still think I will lose the other one because of colored coins/freimarkets though.Maybe the absence of oilCoins will safe me? Let's see. Didn't bet much because of the time horizon anyway.

I literally have almost zero bitcoins left! If I get more bitcoins, I might set up another bet.

Hehehe, I understand.I have also spent most of my bitcoins on freicoins.Suddenly my lately preferred way to buy btc was more restricted and I would like to explore other ways...I have some because [spolier]Skyler behaved as expected[/spolier], but maybe it's not the right time to bet on this.I still think I will lose the other one because of colored coins/freimarkets though.Maybe the absence of oilCoins will safe me? Let's see. Didn't bet much because of the time horizon anyway.

I don't think you're in any danger from freimarkets, since the bet statement says:

Quote

This statement will be regarded as true if before January 1st, 2015 it is possible to buy, sell, trade, and spend virtual currencies which track the value of gold, oil, and U.S. Dollars, with the record of these transactions stored in the primary bitcoin block chain

(emphasis mine)

Since by my understanding freimarkets won't use the primary bitcoin blockchain, I think colored coins and MasterCoin are your only worry. (By the same logic, Bitshares being successful also wouldn't cause you to lose your bet.)

Freimarkets could be deployed in Bitcoin's blockchain if the required hardfork is accepted by the network.It will likely happen on Freicoin first, but it is a protocol extension that can operate in both chains at the same time.And as said, order-based colored coins (freimarkets are "tag-based colored coins" according to Meni Rosenfeld) is what worries me in the current bet.In fact, I would not want to bet against a mastercoin based on a central issuer neither (I undesrtand that's possible, isn't it?). I just want to bet against your proposed p2p derivative issued by a protocol such as mastercoin. If bitshares claims to be able to do the same p2p derivative or similar, I would prefer the new bet not to be so specific about the bitcoin chain so that the bitshare people can also disagree with me (the more coins against me, the higher the reward if I win).

Freimarkets could be deployed in Bitcoin's blockchain if the required hardfork is accepted by the network.It will likely happen on Freicoin first, but it is a protocol extension that can operate in both chains at the same time.And as said, order-based colored coins (freimarkets are "tag-based colored coins" according to Meni Rosenfeld) is what worries me in the current bet.In fact, I would not want to bet against a mastercoin based on a central issuer neither (I undesrtand that's possible, isn't it?). I just want to bet against your proposed p2p derivative issued by a protocol such as mastercoin. If bitshares claims to be able to do the same p2p derivative or similar, I would prefer the new bet not to be so specific about the bitcoin chain so that the bitshare people can also disagree with me (the more coins against me, the higher the reward if I win).

I've often used betsofbitco.in with good experiences, until lately. I recently decided to submit a statement for people to bet on and it's sat "awaiting approval" for the past 3 days. It's actually now getting dangerously close to the deadline and I've received no response from the site owners on how long their approval process normally takes. Has anyone actually heard from the owner's / site maintainer recently?

EDIT of course right after posting this I just noticed it was finally approval, better late than never I guess, I still would have appreciated it having longer to collect bets. Here it is if anyone is interested http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=1772

[Bets Of Bitcoin?] Does anyone know anything about this site? If legit, does anyone have any idea what the average length of time is before an outcome can be decided and closed, and the bidders paid out?

Rationale: Whenever a sufficiently anonymous service is entrusted with bitcoin without sufficient collateral, and the amount thus entrusted is large in comparison to the profitability of the service,that service will cease to exist when the ratio of coins coming in to the coins going out turns negative.

I'm not certain why you're saying this about the site now, they've been around since the early days and while there's been some laggy replies recently I haven't seen the service fail yet nor anyone really complain about being cheated out of their btc yet. I'd actually just like the site to see enough traffic to gain more bettors.

I was totally paranoid about them for the same reasons and never played long running bets but thanks to you bumping this thread I logged in and found some $600 laying around since a year. I can report that WITHDRAWAL worked like a charm :)

.....And even stranger I'm seeing an unconfirmed withdrawel from them in my client for the last 24 hours now, anyone know what gives here? I even had a smaller amount transaction accepted and confirmed in the same time period. It's just sitting in my client not getting confirmations, anyone had this happen to them before?

Perhaps a forum moderator could be so kind and helpful as to plaster a WARNING about this state of affairs in big red letters, to the start of the first post on the first page of this thread?

I mean: If bets aren't being closed, then the site is useless.

If bets are being closed, then it must be assumed that CoinJedi (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=15663) has surrendered to the dark side.

Scam accusations go to another forum (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=83.0). The way would be that coinjedi would get marked as a scammer, not the OP in this thread.I got my money out in time and was skeptical about this service all the time. Crossing fingers it takes a surprisingly good turn.

coinjedi hasn't posted since May, and his account hasn't logged in since September. I hope he's ok!

but the last bet was started nov 28th:

Bitcoin price will exceed 10000$ before the year 2016 endsThis statement will be true if the price of one Bitcoin on any of the three largest BTC/USD marketplaces (by USD volume) exceeds 10000 US dollars anytime before year 2017.

coinjedi hasn't posted since May, and his account hasn't logged in since September. I hope he's ok!

This actually came across my mind, that maybe he is actually not okay. I mean who would just ditch a business like this and leave all the bitcoins in the accounts? He could have died, or been injured so bad he can't use his computer anymore

I had one or two bets that were due 1st of December, and which were resolved a little later (a week or so).Overall it seems like the site operators don't put much effort into it anymore, which is pretty sad.Hopefully they will increase their activity - there's a lot of money to be made :-)

I had one or two bets that were due 1st of December, and which were resolved a little later (a week or so).

Yeah. I looked up the last bets that were resolved and they were in early December. The bitcoin price was even higher then, so if they didn't rip everyone off when BTC was $1200, I'm hoping they wouldn't do it @ $800, either. So that gives me some hope.

Quote

Overall it seems like the site operators don't put much effort into it anymore, which is pretty sad.Hopefully they will increase their activity - there's a lot of money to be made :-)

The best thing they could do would probably sell the site to someone that would want to run it, but you'll always have that counterparty risk thing going on. :P

Looks like someone is still active - I just got mails on some bets that I won :-)

Onkel Paul

I logged in and one of the two bets I had been waiting on was resolved. Unfortunately, the web site threw errors when I tried to change my withdrawal address, and also when I actually tried to withdraw.

I will wait a few hours and try again, I guess.

The number of statements that were closed, but awaiting resolution went from 7 pages down to 5 pages, so the admins apparently resolved a few dozen before getting bored, I guess.

Edit: Even though the site threw an error when I tried to withdraw, the coins just hit my wallet, so the withdrawal went through anyways, apparently. The didn't pay a transaction fee, though. :-\

VALVe will release Half-Life 2 Episode 3 by the end of 2013http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=369

I think that it can be a good idea to open many new statements about pc gaming. ( and spam them around )This because it's easy to open flames/discussions about these topics, so it will give a lot of advertising about Bitcoin.More over, every pc-player has for sure a good GPU ;)

I bet on this, its been almost a week and I'd like to get paid, I dont think there is a lot of detective work to do here! :-\

Yep -- 12 hours ago, there were 5 pages of bets waiting to be resolved. Now they are down to 4 pages.

I've taken over BTC3 off of the site in the past few days once they started resolving bets, so it appears the admins are still alive and solvent, which is good news.

One thing...for both of my recent withdrawals, the site returned an error page, saying my request did not complete when I tried to withdraw. Despite this, the withdrawal went through about 5 minutes later anyways.

So for those that still have money on the site...relax...it looks like everything will be OK.

Though I know I for one will not be betting anymore on anything with a deadline several months into the future.

- The admin fucked me up to punish me for emailing him gently asking to close some of my bets that were waiting.- Some admin of other another service used my crendential to log in there and change my password.

If it's the second possibility, it's only my fault: I used my low-level security non-unique password on this website. Well, fuck me either way.

Just wanted to warn and advise that the site BetsOfBitcoin http://betsofbitco.in/ is not closing betting statements, the effect being that your BTC is essentially locked-up, in limbo, and not available to be withdrawn. This is a shame, because the concept of BetsOfBitcoin is a good one.

1. Bets of Bitcoin will not respond to customer emails. Many report the operators have never responded to a query.2. Betting Statements that expired December 31, 2013, are still not closed.

Users are warned: you can not receive a payout on a wagering statement until the website operators close the statement. For example, you may have won your wager that the SP500 did not close at 2000 by December 31, 2013. But, if the website operators have not closed this statement, then your BTC is essentially locked up.

Hope this helps,

PNW

So, basically, everyone is f*cked and the only lead on CoinJedi and the money he stole is this old phone interview?

I wrote a serious email asking questions - No response! (Wrote the email roughly 7 days ago)

However, i never had a problem using the site, all withdraws have been processed in time, but i was warned by different users here and on irc so i decided to drop the owner a mail and see what he has got to say.

Looks like there is a technical issue (requests timing out) and a managerial issue (i.e. admin/manager has basically abandoned the project).I won't speculate on the second issue, as I have absolutely no information about coinjedi's whereabouts and situation - it's possible that he lost interest, it's also possible that he got hit by a bus (hopefully not).The second issue seems to prevent bets from being decided and finalized, so I don't see how bitcoins in waiting bets these can be retrieved.Withdraing your account balance, however, seems to be possible with some patience - I did it today, and using the "reload" button whenever the dreaded "Your request can not be completed at this time" box appeared, I could coax the system into sending me the small amount that I had there. However, the transaction has not been confirmed yet (it had no fee, which should be ok since it was minimum size, but it might take some time before miners accept it into a block).

Hopefully the site will be revived, I really liked the clean design and considered the betting mechanism pretty fair and reasonable.

The current situation with no feedback from the siteowners is provoking to say the least.

If they abandon the project there should be a public statement, open bets cancelled and funds cashed out.If the project is to be continued, there also should be a public statement explaining why and how the current situation could evolve.

Good news. I was able to get a withdrawal to work eventually after many, many failed attempts. The trick was to manually paste the withdraw URL and if the form appeared attempt to withdraw. I think I had over a dozen tries and I'm not sure which one was the successful one. Also, I tried withdrawing a whole number (e.g., 1) for amount and that worked. I'm now trying to withdraw the fraction but haven't yet gotten that successfully withdrawn. - https://betsofbitco.in/withdraw

I just wanted to pop in here to say betsofbitco.in was what initially inspired us to create betmoose.com (https://www.betmoose.com) and I really hope CoinJedi is alright - doesn't seem like this site ran off with coins, just that it was dropped.

Hopefully he checks in sometime in the future.

CoinJedi - if you ever return, please contact us, we'd like to discuss an opportunity for you.

We've been following it while BetMoose was in development - it didn't really look like a theft; the 1-owner just disappeared and some users actually managed to withdraw their funds using links and queries within the URL (check last few pages of this thread I think). So many actually did manage to withdraw while the site was still active but I guess he was paying monthly for it so 2 months later the page went blank and now the coins are lost forever (presumably). So yeah, CoinJedi may have gotten sick or died, would be the most plausible explanation here, otherwise he wouldn't have allowed any withdrawals and would've done something more similar to the situation seen at Mt.Gox

We've been following it while BetMoose was in development - it didn't really look like a theft; the 1-owner just disappeared and some users actually managed to withdraw their funds using links and queries within the URL (check last few pages of this thread I think). So many actually did manage to withdraw while the site was still active but I guess he was paying monthly for it so 2 months later the page went blank and now the coins are lost forever (presumably). So yeah, CoinJedi may have gotten sick or died, would be the most plausible explanation here, otherwise he wouldn't have allowed any withdrawals and would've done something more similar to the situation seen at Mt.Gox

ah crap, bitcoin devs die like flies (http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2cj1m4/i_would_like_to_address_fud_regarding_colored/cjgez53) these days. Why do people jump to these conclusions that lightly? I hope my family would let users of my project know if I passed away.

We've been following it while BetMoose was in development - it didn't really look like a theft; the 1-owner just disappeared and some users actually managed to withdraw their funds using links and queries within the URL (check last few pages of this thread I think). So many actually did manage to withdraw while the site was still active but I guess he was paying monthly for it so 2 months later the page went blank and now the coins are lost forever (presumably). So yeah, CoinJedi may have gotten sick or died, would be the most plausible explanation here, otherwise he wouldn't have allowed any withdrawals and would've done something more similar to the situation seen at Mt.Gox

ah crap, bitcoin devs die like flies (http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2cj1m4/i_would_like_to_address_fud_regarding_colored/cjgez53) these days. Why do people jump to these conclusions that lightly? I hope my family would let users of my project know if I passed away.

Yeah it's really unfortunate. Lots of people in the world die daily so it's important not to trust one man shops. Not because they're not trustworthy but because that natural risk is there.

We've been following it while BetMoose was in development - it didn't really look like a theft; the 1-owner just disappeared and some users actually managed to withdraw their funds using links and queries within the URL (check last few pages of this thread I think). So many actually did manage to withdraw while the site was still active but I guess he was paying monthly for it so 2 months later the page went blank and now the coins are lost forever (presumably). So yeah, CoinJedi may have gotten sick or died, would be the most plausible explanation here, otherwise he wouldn't have allowed any withdrawals and would've done something more similar to the situation seen at Mt.Gox

ah crap, bitcoin devs die like flies (http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2cj1m4/i_would_like_to_address_fud_regarding_colored/cjgez53) these days. Why do people jump to these conclusions that lightly? I hope my family would let users of my project know if I passed away.

Yeah it's really unfortunate. Lots of people in the world die daily so it's important not to trust one man shops. Not because they're not trustworthy but because that natural risk is there.

people "naturally" die only once in about 80 years and for the average young techie the chances should be much lower than 1/80 to die in a certain year.Hmm, thinking about it, maybe terminally ill people tend to go for big goals like leaving a heritage?